OH and I recently went for a long dog walk with friends and afterwards, as a reward for our efforts, my friend had baked this delicious Banana and Cinnamon Loaf which she served to us with berries. She and I often exchange recipes, gardening tips and book recommendations, so I left her house armed with the recipe book, Get the Glow by Madeleine Shaw, that this recipe originated from. Every recipe in this book is a healthy, culinary delight. Madeleine Shaw is another of these health gurus who has ditched sugar however, on reading the book, I feel the recipes are much more user friendly. I shall be sharing many more with you over the next few weeks as I try them out. I have given up sugar once before and I felt a thousand times better and I also lost loads of weight, however I missed cake so it was a joy to see that Madeleine does a Sweet Treats section.

This loaf is so easy to make but watch the cooking time as the first time I made it I thought it was too dry.

Banana & Cinnamon Loaf

Ingredients
1 vanilla pod
110g butter or coconut oil, melted
250g coconut sugar
4 ripe bananas
4 tbsp almond milk, rice milk, coconut milk or whole milk
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
275g rice flour, ground almonds or buckwheat flour
1 tsp cinnamon (this is not included in the recipe in the book but I think it must be a typo so I added it and it is a delicious combination, banana and cinnamon.)

How to prepare
Preheat the oven to 180℃. Line a 900g loaf tin with baking paper.
Cut open the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds. Mix all the ingredients together in the food processor. Pour into the tin and bake for 50 mins (I baked for 45 mins in Aga baking oven) until almost cooked through.
Remove the loaf from the tin and leave it to cool, then dig in. Serve with a smear of Chocolate Hazlenut spread or Chia Raspberry jam.

For the recipe book click here: