Alice's Vegan Bakes: Chocolate Banana Bread

First of let me tell you this recipe is not diabetic friendly! It is laden with sugar and makes no attempts to hide that. Secondly let me tell you this is not my recipe, don't worry I haven't been committing recipe theft, it was kindly given to me by my little sister; Alice. Alice is the master baker of our family (does every family have one, or just mine?) she really really ought to go on The Great British Bake Off, but we're all waiting to see how that turns out on Channel 4, what even is the point without Mary Berry?! Anyway she has now turned her hand to vegan and gluten free baking, and she's got it down to a real art. Banana bread is something she regularly makes just to pass the time and use up old bananas. This particular banana bread however was for Jamie's birthday so it had to be a little something special, hence the addition of chocolate (all of which I found in my local sainsburys at quite a low cost!), and well a gluten free vegan star was born.

I often write in my blog posts the health benefits of eating one of the particular ingredients in the recipe, if you are interested in bananas see my last post here. However I'm not sure this can really be classed as healthy, this is definitely an indulgence, but ya no why the hell not treat yourself once in a while!

Ingredients

250g Gf flour

3 heaped tsp Baking powder

100g Brown sugar

1 tsp Cinnamon

3 large Black bananas, mashed

75g Vegetable or Sunflower oil

20g raw Cacao powder

100g vegan chocolate

To serve

Vegan chocolate buttons (milk and white)

1 banana (sliced)

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons sugar

Method

1) Place the mashed bananas in a large bowl and add the oil and sugar. Mix together.

2) Add the dry ingredients (minus the vegan chocolate) and combine until the mixture is smooth. Chop the chocolate into small chunks and mix throughout the batter.

3) Grease a loaf tin with a small amount of vegan butter and pour the mixture in. Bake at 180'c for 20 minutes.

4) Remove the banana bread from the oven and cover with foil. Return to the oven and bake for another 40 minutes.

5) Decorate with chocolate buttons and caramelised banana slices. To caramelise the bananas place the water and sugar in a frying pan, heat until the sugar disolves, add the sliced banana and fry until golden.