Banana and Date Bread (gluten and refined sugar free)

For me a baked good is a treat with butter, sugar, chocolate, etc – if it tastes good I want it in there. However I’m not unaware of the move to healthier baking and cutting out refined sugar and making gluten free versions of favourite bakes is becoming increasingly popular.

 

There are lots of alternatives to refined sugar but in this I’ve just gone for the natural sugars in fruit to sweeten this banana bread. A girl I work with has inspired me as she has launched a site with her friend all about healthy eating, MT Real – check it out here. She eats the most amazing array of food and is constantly coming in with delicious bakes that are gluten and refined sugar free. So here is my contribution to celebrate her site launch.

Ingredients

175g ground almonds

2 tsp gluten free baking powder

½ tsp bicarb of soda

½ tsp salt

125g butter, melted

150g dried dates

2 large eggs

400g ripe bananas

60g chopped walnuts

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/GM 3.
2. Add the baking powder, bicarb and salt to the almonds and mix. Set to one side.
3. Take half the dates and put in a food processor with the bananas and whizz up until smooth.
4. Chop the remaining dates. Add 1 tbsp of almonds to this and mix to that the sticky edges of the chopped dates are covered. This keeps them separate and also helps them not drop once added to the mixture.
5. Whisk the eggs into the melted butter in a bowl.
6. Add the banana and date mixture, along with the vanilla extract and cinnamon, and mix again.
7. Add the ground almond mix and whisk until it’s all mixed well.
8. Pop in the chopped dates and walnuts and mix again.
9. Put into a lined loaf tin and bake for about an hour. It might need 10-15 mins longer.



Enthusiasm Flapjacks

Sometimes I need to clear out stuff from my baking shelves so flapjacks are an ideal way to use up ingredients. The quantities below are a guide so feel free to experiment. 

The name comes from the most wonderful Lorna who, when I lived with her, used to make Enthusiasm Soup. So called because you put everything you've got into it.   

Ingredients

250g butter

200g brown sugar (or any sugar)

Good dollop of golden syrup or honey

200-300g mixture of dried fruit, nuts, seeds
400-500g oats 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Melt the butter in a large saucepan. While melting add the sugar and syrup/honey. Mix it all together.

3.    Take off the heat and add the fruit/nut/seed mixture and stir well. Then add the oats, stirring again. You don't want a wet mixture at the end just enough to coat everything to create a sticky mess.

4.    Line a large tin and tip the mixture in, smoothing out before putting in the oven for 20 minutes.

5.    Cool and cut into desired sized pieces. Let it cool properly as the butter need to solidify a bit at bind it all together.

 

Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies

I don’t really have anything to waffle on about this week before I let you have the recipe of what I made on Monday. I did think about sharing a list of all the places The Thew and I went on Saturday for one of our quarterly ‘Days of Fun’ but I got worried about how long the list of places was getting and what that may say about the alcohol consumption that went on. Needless to say we drank a lot, ate a lot of cheese and had fun.  

So on to the recipe. I found this on The New York Times’ website and tinkered a bit with quantities as their original recipe would have made something that resembled all that is wrong with US portion sizes. These went down well and were described as a reverse cheesecake. 

Ingredients

Cookies

40g of desiccated coconut

120g butter

165g dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

95g plain flour

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

130g porridge oats

50g stoned dates, chopped (you could use raisins or sultanas if you prefer)

3 tbsp caster sugar 

Filling

60g cream cheese

3 tbsp mascarpone cheese (I forgot to weigh what this was!)

12g icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract 

1.    Heat the oven to 180°/GM4 and spread the coconut on a baking tray. Toast for about 5 minutes (stiring half way through. You want it going golden and smelling great. Once done turn the oven up to 190°C/GM5.

2.    Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light in colour.

3.    Add the eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Worth scraping down the sides of the bowl midway through.

4.    Add the flour, salt, baking powder and 1 tsp of the cinnamon. Beat well and then add the oats, dates, and coconut mixing well again.

5.    This mixture will make 32 cookies so divide the mixture in half, then into four and then each of the four pieces into four. It sounds complicated when written down but it will make sense when you’re doing it. Roll them into balls.

6.     ombine the caster sugar with 1 tsp ground cinnamon and roll the balls in it to cover the outside.

7.    Put them on a baking tray, well-spaced out, flatten very slightly and bake for about 12 minutes (turn half way through if you have a gas oven to give an even colour).

8.    While that is going on put all the filling ingredients in to a bowl (sifting in the icing sugar) and mix well. Once the cookies are cooled use the filling to sandwich two together. I suppose it was about a tsp worth but I just used a knife the spread it on about 5mm thick.