Coconut blossom sugar is a great sub for anyone looking to keep blood sugars a little more subdued. We’re not looking at a health food here – just a less evil variety of sweetener than that bad white bitch. This new exotic sugar is tastier than white sugar, and sufficiently pretentious to earn bragging rights with that annoying athletic dude in your office.
True disciples carry little dinky pouches of coconut sugar around in their hemp-woven tote bags, to sprinkle into beverages and conversations during the day. Let’s all blame Gwynnie (a favourite hobby of my husband’s).
Coconut sugar’s unique minerally taste comes from its modest stash of, erm, minerals. There’s a snifter of potassium, iron and zinc in there, causing great pandemonium among the glitterati in LA.
Aside from its titillating nutritional profile, this is one very tasty sugar with an equally spectacular price tag. So the fantastical fairy tale ends there I’m afraid. Gram for gram, it’s more expensive than quinoa hand-harvested-by-Justin-Bieber.
2016 Banana Bread (egg-free, vegan, gluten-free)
When my nippers hound me for something trashy, I like to make this banana bread and drizzle dark chocolate over the top. The result is comically hypnotic. That’s because bananas and buckwheat go magically well together. They are the Amy and Brian of the breakfast table. One is naturally sweet, the other robust and burly. Add to this, coconut sugar’s spell, and you’ve got yourself a new BF.
And look, if the coconut sugar is a step too far, you can use fine rapadura sugar or muscovado. I won’t mind. Much.
100g extra virgin coconut oil (for vegans) or ghee, room temperature
160g coconut sugar
350g or 4 bananas, mashed
Pinch sea salt
1 tablespoon psyllium husks, soaked with 3 tablespoons plant milk (an egg replacer)
4 tablespoons natural soya yoghurt or any plant-based milk
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
200g buckwheat flour or brown rice flour (220g sprouted spelt flour is spanking delicious. Regular spelt flour will require only 180grams. Wholegrain flours can have very different levels of absorbency)
1 teaspoon baking powder
Dusting of oats, to top (optional)
Fire up your oven to 180C.
Then beat the fat with the sugar. Add the mashed bananas, salt flakes, gooey pysllium ‘egg’, soya yoghurt or milk, and the vanilla extract. That’s your glue.
Tumble in the remaining ingredients (flour and raising agent). Top with thinly sliced banana if you have any leftover. Scrape into a large 25cm loaf tin, lined with non-stick parchment. Dust with oat flakes if you have some. Bake at 180 degrees for 60-70 minutes, until it doesn’t wobble in the centre. This banana bread doesn’t overcook too quickly, so relax if you left in in 10 minutes overtime.
Remove from the oven and let it settle for 5 minutes before ejecting from its tin and letting it to cool on a wire rack. This bread keeps really well all week in a bread basket, covered with parchment. When it gets old, a scrape of butter helps keep each slice moist.
In other news …
Very psyched that Jamie Oliver tweeted my flapjack recipe as part of his “10 Healthy Snacks to Kickstart 2016”. You can check his list out here:
Breakfast Bars from @SusanJaneHealth | 10 Healthy Snacks to kickstart 2016: https://t.co/JI040DSyiJ ?RT pic.twitter.com/LmglaJE78u
— Jamie’s Food Tube (@JamiesFoodTube) January 5, 2016
16 Comments
Hi! I\’m off the refined sugar at the moment, mainly due to the addictive tendencies it inspires in me! Does coconut blossom sugar have similar addictive properties or is it safe for a sugar addict like me? x
I reckon stay off all sugar for at least 3 weeks to re-calibrate your taste buds my friend! Then you’ll notice a massive change with addiction 😉
The banana bread sounds heavenly. I want to make it NOW.
Personally, I love my Burford Browns, so if I want to use eggs instead of the psyllium husks, how many should I use? Thanks in advance.
go for 1 egg, to replace the “psyllium & 3 tablespoons milk”. DOne! It’s a gorgeous loaf. Glad it found you!
I made it! We’ve devoured half of it already. I blame the children. Thanks so much, it’s bloody delicious!
Just made this banana bread and while its fab I\’m a bit concerned re the amount of sugar, even though its coconut sugar. What is the minimum amount to make this work?
Loving the new book btw.
You can reduce this no problem from 170g to 120g and it works beautifully. I do this too – but most people go for the sweetness 😉
I also make it with 120g sugar and it’s more than enough. Especially if the bananas are over ripe 🙂
I reduce the sugar in most recipes actually and never notice the difference.
Hi Susan,
Where do you buy all your specialty flours? I\’m off of gluten at the moment and the flours I find are not completely off gluten.
Thank you.
Fallon & Byrne in Dublin 2 is excellent, as are all the independent Irish health food stores. They will have absolutely everything you need. Online can be handy too (evergreen for example, or organic supermarket in Ireland). Good luck! I hope you have a fab adventure!
REALLY this post is GREAT! OMG this was amazing! I couldn’t wait to try it so I cut into it when it was still warm, and it held together great…I think the Chia really helped. I also added a 4th banana bc the organic ones seem to be a bit smaller. Sooo good! Thanks for this recipe.
So thrilled you made it. We absolutely adore it too!
Thanks for the recipe. I used 100g of rice syrup instead of the coconut sugar, an extra banana (making it 400g) and left out the yogurt/milk because of using liquid sugar, I was worried it would be too wet. It turned out very nice indeed and not too sweet which is what I was after.
Nice one! Well executed!
[…] Vegan Banana Bread […]
[…] Sandwiches are quick and easy, but when you have intolerance’s it is very hard to find bread that is dairy, wheat, egg, soya, nut and yeast free! If you are ok with spelt (it contains gluten), try this buckwheat and spelt bread If you are looking for a gluten free recipe, you have two choices of banana bread, one containing eggs – Banana Bread and one without Vegan Banana Bread. […]