Banana & Walnut Loaf

After reading the Swank and Jelinek (OMS) diet, I made the decision to go dairy-free.  I was talking to my mum about it, saying that so many cakes use butter and milk.  Coming to my rescue, as she always does, mum made up this recipe for me.  I took it to a little get together with some friends.  They all loved it and asked for the recipe, so here is my mum's dairy-free banana and walnut loaf.

Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas
2 tbsp (40ml) golden syrup
3/4 cup brown sugar (loosely packed)
1 egg or 2 egg whites (see notes if you don't eat eggs)
1 cup self-raising flour
pinch salt
100g (approx 1 cup) walnut halves, roughly chopped

Preparation:
Pre-heat the oven to 180 C
Lightly grease a loaf tin (mine is 20cm x 10cm approx) with oil - I use extra-virgin olive oil or macadamia oil.

Method:
This is a really easy one bowl, hand-mix recipe.  Gather all your ingredients together.

Mash the bananas in a mixing bowl with the back of a fork.

Add the golden syrup, stir

Add the sugar, stir

Add the egg/egg replacer, stir

Now before you add the flour - make sure your walnuts are chopped, your loaf tin is greased and your oven is hot.  As soon as the raising agents in the flour come into contact with the liquid ingredients, they will start to activate and need to go in the oven straight away.  You do not want the mixture sitting around while you wait for the oven to get hot.

Add the flour and pinch of salt, stir

Add the walnuts, stir through

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin.

Bake on the bottom shelf of the oven for about 30 minutes.
Cool slightly.  This loaf can be cut into 10, 2cm slices.

Look at those lovely walnuts. (Enjoy - Helen x)

Notes & Variations:  If you don't eat eggs, you can replace the egg with either 2 egg whites or 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil or macadamia oil. You will find a list of egg substitutes/replacers here.  I freeze slices of this loaf in small snap-lock bags, then I can defrost one piece at a time to have when I'm craving some morning tea.  I don't eat this everyday as there is a lot of sugar in the recipe.

Seasonal:  Bananas are grown all year round.  As many of our bananas come from tropical Queensland, supply is affected by cyclones. 

Nutrition: Bananas are a good source of vitamin B6, vitamin C, potassium, magnesium and folate (self nutrition data).  100grams of walnuts has about 4.5g of saturated fat.

Interesting Facts:  The Big Banana is in Coffs Harbour, NSW.  There are hundreds of varieties of bananas but in Australia we mostly have Cavendish and lady finger bananas.  Bananas are picked when they are green, as they continue to ripen after they are picked.  Small brown spots on the banana indicate that the fruit is ripe and sweet.