It’s that time of the year when my body starts craving comfort food.

This year we had the longest summer since we moved to Sydney. Almost five months of endless summer.
Even though summer is my favourite season, I must to admit that I am pretty happy about these new cooler temperatures. Simply because I can lock myself at home and bake thousands of goodies!

The baking season opens officially with probably the best healthy banana bread that I have ever made.

When it comes to healthy banana bread it is hard to achieve texture, flavour, sweetness and presentation. But this one my dear, ticks all the boxes: it is moist, tender and full of banana flavour with a gentle sweetness. And most important, it is unbelievable healthy: no gluten, no dairy, no refined sugar.

Of course this is not the traditional banana bread recipe. If you know me, you know that I like mixing traditional recipes with new ingredients. And this time I decided to play with carob.

Carob is a caffeine free alternative to cocoa. It isn’t as bitter as cocoa which it allows to cut back on the sugar (which is a plus in my kitchen!). Don’t expect to have a strong chocolaty flavour because carob won’t give you that.
Carob is mostly used from people with sensitivity to chocolate or any other issues with it; in fact I have found about carob when I was following a really strict diet that cuts on pretty much everything, chocolate included! Hard times…

Anyway, let’s move to the kitchen!

Carob Banana Bread

GLUTEN FREE, VEGAN, REFINED SUGAR FREE, LOW FODMAP

Serve: Makes 1 banana bread

Ingredients

3 bananas
50gr walnut meal
95gr buckwheat flour
50gr brown rice flour
60gr carob powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bi-soda powder
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 vanilla stick
pinch of Himalayan pink salt
2 tbsp ground flaxseeds
6 tbsp water
60ml melted coconut oil
2 tbsp coconut sugar
chopped walnut for topping
coconut chips for topping

Instructions

Preheat the oven at 180° C.

Mix 2 tbsp of ground flaxseeds with 6 tbsp of water and leave on the side for 10 minute.

In a large bowl, mix together buckwheat flour, brown rice flour, ground walnuts, coconut sugar, carob powder, baking powder, bi-soda powder, cinnamon, vanilla and salt.

In a different bowl, combine the mashed bananas with flaxseeds mixture and melted coconut oil.
Add the wet mix to the dry mix and mix until well combined.

Line a loaf tin with baking paper and pour the mixture into it. Top with chopped walnuts and coconut chips and bake for 35 minutes at 180° C.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool down.

Notes

For an even more refined sugar free option, skip the coconut sugar.
The banana bread will still be sweet enough thanks to the bananas and the naturally sweetened carob powder.