Gluten Free Banana Bread

What's your favourite food memory?

Shall I tell you mine?  Let me re-live this lovely memory with you and maybe it'll spark a foodie memory for you too.  (I tend to remember a lot from 'food' milestones!)

You see, when I lived out in Australia, before I started on the Gluten Free way of life, one day I went to this local cafe - a really cool cafe called 'Lemon'.  They did this banana bread as part of their breakfast menu and everyone seemed to be ordering this banana bread.  The waitress asked me if I wanted it toasted.  Hmm 'Toasted?' I enquired, 'do you recommend that?'  

'Oh yeah,' She replied in her friendly, peppy, Aussie drawl,  'it's awesome.'

'Cool,' I said, 'I'll have it toasted, thanks.'

A few moments later, banana bread arrived, toasted, warm, smelling outrageously of cinnamon, sweet banana and .... well, what I can only describe as heaven.  It was served with butter on the side, so I spread the warm fluffy banana bread with the butter and I took a bite.  My goodness, that bite will stay with me for a very long time.  Why, on earth, had I not discovered the sweet wonder of toasted banana bread before?  Pinch me.  I'm done.

And with that banana bread became quite a staple in my life down-under.  When I started working at the cafe there, they made banana bread fresh each morning and served it toasted with icing sugar dusted on top.  When working on the breakfast shift, we would be able to take a 15 minute break to have breakfast, choosing anything from the menu.   Looking forward to that Banana Bread break got me through a long shift, I can tell you!

Little did I know that the wonderful banana bread was probably contributing to my very poorly self at the time - with tummy cramps etc (now, looking back, it all makes sense).  But in some ways it was worth it while it lasted.

So, since going gluten free, I often crave banana bread.  So I woke up the other morning and was like, 'I'm going to make Gluten Free Banana Bread!'  And so I damn well did!  And do you know what?  It was absolutely awesome, toasted with butter on top :)

Here's the recipe - enjoy it and make sure you at least try a toasted bit with butter!!

R E C I P E
I n g r e d i e n t s


250 grams Doves Gluten Free plain flour
2 teaspoons Doves or Dr Oetker Gluten Free baking powder
125 grams unsalted butter (room temp)
250 grams caster sugar
4 bananas (ripe and mashed)
2 large eggs (lightly beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

M e t h o d

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4).

Lightly grease a loaf tin and then line it with parchment paper. (No parchment paper? No worries, you will be fine with just a greased tray :)

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.

Mix the butter, sugar, banana, eggs, vanilla extract and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to combine, be careful not to over mix.

Pour the batter into the loaf tin and bake for around 1 hour 15 minutes, or until a skewer comes out kind of clean and the top is golden brown (don't worry if the skewer doesn't totally come out clean - the bread is meant to be of a moist consistency :)

Leave to cool and then serve in thick slices with butter.

This cake is also awesome with cream cheese frosting and coconut on top! (Just saying ;)