Strawberry, Coconut, Raspberry Banana Bread

I've looked at different fruit bread recipes and thought they just seemed odd - not a cake and not a loaf but I've changed my mind. Isabella and I had a 'girls' holiday in Melbourne staying with friends. One morning walked to the local cafe for breakfast. The recommendation was the toasted rhubarb bread. I was not expected to be 'wowed', but I was!
We came back and I looked at a range of recipes to try. I wanted something that was not too unhealthy and this one appealed because it had chia seeds and lots of fruit in it.
I used fresh strawberries and frozen raspberries and 3 bananas.
We LOVE it and Isabella and I have had it for breakfast for the last three days - toasted with butter.
I'm going to try to reduce the sugar next time and probably use coconut sugar. The banana and fruit makes it sweet anyway.
This will also be a great breakfast recipe when we have people staying. It lasts well because we had it toasted. YUM
Thanks Lynn and Bec for the recommendation!


Strawberry, Coconut, Raspberry Banana Bread

INGREDIENTS

• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup ripe mashed banana (about 2-3 bananas)
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted and cooled
• 1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt 
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk (soy, coconut, or skim also work)
• 3/4 cup diced organic ripe strawberries
• 1/4 cup smashed organic raspberries (or you can use more strawberries)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut, plus 3 tablespoons for topping (sweetened is fine, too)
• 2 tablespoons chia seeds
• 2-4 strawberries, sliced for topping

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 9-inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
3. In a seperate large bowl, beat together banana, brown sugar, egg, coconut oil vanilla, yogurt, and almond milk until smooth and creamy. Slowly add dry mixture to wet ingredients, and mix until combined. Gently fold strawberries, raspberries, coconut and chia seeds into the batter.
4. Place batter in prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle top evenly with 3 tablespoons of coconut. Place sliced strawberries over the top of the bread. Bake for 50-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 20 minutes, then remove from pan and return to wire rack to finish cooling. Bread is even better the next day (they always are). Bread will stay fresh for a few days when wrapped tightly.

Banana and Pineapple Chia Pudding

I have to admit I was drawn to this by the picture on Pintest and my version looked a lot different. Luckily it tasted really nice. Isabella (5 years) loved it, so it will be a 'make again' for me.
It was easy, it is really healthy and tastes good.
I have been trying different Chia seed recipes after coming across information about the incredible health benefits (included in a previous post)

The picture that attracted me.

Isabella suggested using blueberries instead of pineapple next time - a great idea.
We ate it after about 4 hours and it was fine.

Banana and Pineapple Chai Pudding

Ingredients

4 Tbsp chia seeds
4 medium bananas
1-2 cups of fresh diced pineapple (I used canned)
1 cup of water

Directions

In a blender blend banana and water.

Pour blended mixture into a dessert container or bowl. Add chopped pineapple.

Stir in chia seeds. Mix very well.

Pop into refrigerator to set up. The longer you let it set up the better it tastes. I generally let it refrigerate over night.

Super Healthy Banana Ice Cream

There seems to be a bit of a frozen dessert theme happening in my home at the moment...maybe because we are in the middle of summer.
I'm always aware that ice cream has a lot of dairy and sugar in it, so when I saw this recipe I was interested...dubious but interested. It contains no sugar and is predominantly banana.

I'm always a bit reluctant to buy too many bananas...we either go through a banana grazing phase wher they disappear so fast I can't believe it or sit untouched and get less and less appetising.
 I had a few bananas that were getting a bit old so decided to give it a go. Usually older bananas get made into banana cake or banana and blueberry muffins in my house but this recipe was so good and easy it might be a tough decision next time.

I chopped the bananas into 3-4 cm slices and froze in a snap lock bag (overnight is good...but possibly a shorter time would be ok too.
I used crunchy peanut butter and it was fine. I'm sure this could be left out of the recipe if you didn't want to use nuts.


Banana Ice Cream

4 bananas, just slightly overripe (brown spots good, completely black not so good)
2 tbsps creamy peanut butter
2 tsps cocoa powder (Dutch process),

DO NOT FREEZE THE WHOLE BANANA, you’ll have a heck of a time blending that beast.

Peel the bananas and slice them up into 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick disks. Place the banana slices in the freezer for about an hour or until they are frozen solid. 

Put the frozen slices in a food processor and pulse. First they will start to resemble gravel, but keep going. The bananas will soon turn into a frozen mush – at this point, start scraping the sides down (you will do this a lot). Or you could add a dash of milk since the liquid will help the blending. After a few minutes of stopping to scrape the sides down, the banana begins to blend into a creamy texture. 

When the bananas look like whipped ice cream, you can add your mix-ins like peanut butter and/or cocoa powder, chocolate chips, toffee, raspberries, anything goes! Straight out of the food processor, the ice cream is like soft serve. You can also freeze it for a firmer texture. It’s pretty hard (and therefore, brittle) when I scoop it immediately after removing it from the freezer. Just give it a minute or two to soften up. 

Chocolate, Banana and Berry Cake

This recipe comes from Sarah Kate Lynch's book 'On Top Of Everything.' I really like her books and especially those that have a food theme. I tried this recipe years ago when I first read the book and remembered it being really good. Today we had visitors and when I asked Isabella what kid of cake we should make for afternoon tea she said chocolate and strawberry! I'm not sure where the idea came from but it was a good one.

The recipe is for raspberries but I figure any berry will work. We used strawberries today.
The only part of the recipe I'm not sure about is the chocolate in the cake mixture. It does't say to melt it but unless it is melted it would be in chunks (...maybe I'll try that next time?). I melted it and added it with the wet ingredients.

Chocolate, Banana and Raspberry Cake Recipe

Cake Mixture
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
100g granulated white sugar
50g light brown sugar
1 tsp of BP
1 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
150g dark chocolate (I melted it)
3 large very ripe bananas mashed well
3 large eggs lightly beaten
120g unsalted butter - melted and cooled
1 cup raspberries

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C. Place oven rack in middle of oven.
Butter or spray cake tin.
In large bowl combine the flour, sugars, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, salt and chocolate. Set aside.
In a medium bowl combine mashed banans, eggs and melted butter. Withe rubber spatular or wooden spoon lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mix) into the dry ingredients until just combined and batter is thick..
Add raspberries and spoon batter into prepared tin.
Bake about 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.
Place on wire rack to cool for 5 mins then remove from tin.
Let cool and ice.

Icing
250 g dark chocolate
1 cup sour cream
2/3 tsp of vanilla.

Melt chocolate in double boiler or large metal bowl over pot of simmer water, storing occasionally.
Remove bowl from heat and whisk in sour cream and vanilla.
Cool to room temp, storing occasionally.
Icing will become thick enough to spread.
You must work quickly and spread before it becomes too thick. (If icing becomes stiff, reheat over simmering water, then cool and try again)

top with a layer for fresh raspberries.

Sticky Banana Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce - Recipe

This one was recommended by someone I work with so I'll credit it to both Jo Seager and Lisa!

The recipe looked pretty good but the actual taste exceeded my expectations. It was amazing and the caramel sauce to die for. I have to admit to eating spoonfuls of the sauce while the cake was still cooking. It was a hit with everyone at dinner tonight.

My only change will be to make it in a smaller diameter dish as it was a bit thin for my liking.

I will be making this again but will have to make sure it is not too often. I'm dying to try some cold tomorrow morning from the fridge too!

Sticky Banana Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce

1 cup chopped pitted dates

1 tsp baking soda
100g butter

3/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cups self raising flour

2-3 bananas, sliced

For Butterscotch Sauce

1 cup brown sugar

100g butter

1 cup cream

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Spray a 22-23cm square cake tin with non-stick baking spray and line with non-stick baking paper.

2. Place dates in a small bowl with 1 cup of hot water . Bring to the boil, then add the baking soda. Stir well and cool for 5 minutes.

3. Using an electric beater beat the butter and caster sugar together until fluffy and pale. Add the eggs, vanilla and flour then beat in dates and their liquid. Mix in the banana slices then pour into the prepared cake tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

4. Serve with butterscotch sauce poured over and ice cream.

To Make the sauce

1. Place the brown sugar, butter and cream in a saucepan and stir over a medium heat until it comes to a good boil. Boil for 1 minute then pour over the pudding as a sauce.

Di-Nana's never fail Banana Cake Recipe

Isabella calls my mother Di-Nana (a mixture of Diana and Nana). This recipe is one of hers that I make over and over and it never fails despite my not very precise measurements.

It is good for cakes or made into muffins. I also add chocolate chips...as if it wasn't unhealthy enough as it was!

Isabella and I made a double recipe this time for John's birthday cake. The key to a good banana cake is old bananas...old brown squashy ones.

I used a smallish round tin and put baking paper up the sides (like in soufflé recipes) to make a really high cake.

The decorations were a compromise between what I wanted and Isabella wanted...I think she 'won' the compromise!

Banana Cake

115 grams of butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 mashed bananas

2 tbs milk

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup flour

1 tsp of baking powder

Cream butter and sugar. Add beaten egg, eggs and bananas and mix.

Heat milk and stir in soda, it will be froth up a little. Mix into butter, banana etc mixture. (At this stage I add chocolate chips...about 1/2 - 1 cup)

Sift in four and baking powder. Mix only until the dry ingredients are combined.

Pour into greased, lined baking tin or individual muffin cases.

Bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes or until a fork poked into the middle comes out clean.

Banana and Blueberry Muffins - recipe

One of the major reasons for writing this blog is to create an 'online recipe book' to pass on to future generations. My mother has the hand written recipe book my grandmother used, and since I'm not likely to handwrite anything, this has got to be the best option for me and my family!

This recipe isn't spectacular but it is a good dependable one that I use a lot. I got it from someone who made it dairy free - instead of butter there is oil and the milk was substituted with soy milk. It is also on a scrap of fading paper that has been stuck by magnet to our exhaust fan...so I really need to get it written down before I loose it forever.

Isabella (3) loves helping to make these, although the helping is more me finding ways to keep her occupied while I quickly make them...putting muffin cases in pans, mashing banana etc.

I use really old brown bananas (the look like they should have been thrown away), often frozen that way - I struggle to throw out food and bananas don't go in my compost or work farm. The blueberries are usually frozen and just stirred in at the end of the recipe.

I usually make a double recipe and freeze lots of them. They defrost well.

Banana and Blueberry Muffins

2 cups of flour (1 of while, 1 of wholemeal works well)

3/4 cup brown sugar (I love demerara dark brown sugar)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp of baking soda

1-2 bananas (ripe)...I usually use two to get the fruit content up

1/2 cup oil (vege oil)

1/2 - 1 cup milk

Mix flour, b-powder, b- soda and sugar.

Mash banana, add banana and oil into dry ingredients.

Add milk to moisten.

Carefully stir in blueberries.

Bake at 200 degrees c for 15 - 20 minutes.