The ritual of baking calls for careful attentiveness and patience. It is a practice requiring faith in our mindful measuring and mixing, in our pouring and waiting. But if everything goes well, we are happily rewarded when the oven door is opened to reveal freshly baked goodies evoking nostalgia, or comfort, or hope.
The smell of this perfectly composed, long-baking banana bread wafts through the house and out the windows. It’s one of those scents that makes people breathe in a little more deeply and gather around the table waiting for the loaf to cool just slightly. It is moist and crumbly, sweet and delicious, and those who may be following an alternate diet can readily indulge (along with everyone else). This is the kind of recipe that gets saved and splattered and crinkled with love.
Ingredients
- 4 cups gluten-free flour*
- 1 cup organic brown cane sugar
- ⅓ cup organic turbinado sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon whole chia seeds
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4–5 large bananas mashed thoroughly
- 1½ cups non-dairy milk
- 1 cup oil**
- ½ cup applesauce
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Cinnamon-sugar blend
Preparation
*This recipe uses Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All-purpose Baking Flour (a mix of garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, whole grain sorghum flour and fava bean flour) but feel free to try others.
**This recipe uses a combination of organic coconut and olive oils, but I have used each on its own with success.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Whisk wet ingredients together and combine with dry ingredients. If desired, fold in fresh or frozen fruit at this step.
Spray three bread pans with a non-hydrogenated, nonstick cooking spray (coconut oil spray works great). Divide batter evenly between the three bread pans. Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar blend over the entire top of all three loaves and arrange them on the middle oven rack.
Bake for 45–55 minutes. Bread is done when a knife or toothpick inserted deep into the center comes out clean. NOTE: These loaves were baked in a convection oven; if using a conventional oven, be sure to rotate loaves halfway through and adjust bake time (slightly longer) or temperature (slightly higher at 350).
