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Ode to Wales Banana Bread

Ode to wales banana bread for web

I love any excuse to escape to Anglesey, the beautiful Welsh island where my husband John grew up. We managed a couple of days of The Modern Way to Cook book shoot up there, and some of my favourite shots were taken on Newborough Beach – a stunning coastline backdropped by Snowdon and its sister mountains, with a magical forest at one end and a tiny island all of it’s own at the other.

This is the banana bread we picnicked on at Newborough.

Soft, moist, and light all at once and studded with chunks of darkest chocolate, all without any flour, dairy, eggs, or refined sugar. Toast this for breakfast with wild abandon and congratulate yourself for making something that is insanely indulgent tasting and incredibly delicious without dragging you down, or pack it up for a picnic and enjoy with a flask of tea as an afternoon treat like we did on this sunny winter afternoon.

Duration
1hr 30 mins
Serves
Makes 1 good 900g loaf
Ode to wales banana bread for web

Ingredients

  • 75ml melted coconut oil, plus extra for greasing
  • 200g pecans (walnuts work too)
  • 200g rolled oats
  • 4 large ripe bananas
  • 100g coconut sugar, plus 1 tablespoon (optional)
  • 100ml maple syrup
  • 100ml unsweetened almond milk
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • a good pinch of caraway seeds (optional)
  • 75g dark chocolate (70%)
  1. Prep the ingredients

    Preheat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan/gas 3 and get all your ingredients together. Grease a 900g non-stick loaf tin with coconut oil.

  2. To make the banana bread

    While the oven comes up to temperature, roast the pecans in it for 10 minutes, then roughly chop and set aside. Meanwhile, blitz the oats in a food processor until you have a scruffy flour. Put the oat flour into a bowl.

  3. Put the bananas into the food processor with the 100g of coconut sugar, maple syrup, almond milk and melted coconut oil and blitz until well combined. Add the oat flour, baking powder and a good pinch of salt. Blitz until combined, then stir in the pecans. Add the caraway seeds, if using.

  4. Pour half the batter into the loaf tin. Break the chocolate up into thin strips and lay it along the middle of the batter, leaving space at the end. Pour in the rest of the batter and top with the extra spoonful of coconut sugar. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes.

Additional information

Storage

Store
Wrap in greaseproof paper and store in airtight container for up to 3 days
Freeze
Up to 2 months.

As featured in

Anna Jones a modern way to cook

A Modern Way to Cook

"A new collection of delicious, healthy, inspiring vegetarian recipes – that are so quick to make they’re achievable on any night of the week. Anna’s new book will be a truly practical and inspiring collection for anyone who wants to put dinner on the table quickly, but still eat food that tastes incredible and is doing you good."

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