Easy Recipe: sugar-free banana bread with fresh figs.

[by Karin Barnhoorn]

Fig season runs to an end, so buy them while you still can to spice up that golden oldie: (refined) sugar-free banana bread.
This new variation on the banana bread theme was born because my Portuguese neighbour came over with a bag of very, very ripe figs at the very moment I was making the regular batter. So half of them ended up in the bowl. The other half was gone by the end of the day. Healthy snack attack!

Recipe for sugar-free banana bread

Ingredients

• 3 ripe bananas
• 6 ripe figs
• 2 or 3 eggs (2 medium, 3 small)
• 150 grams of mixed flour | 50 grams oat, 50 grams almond, 50 grams coconut (or spelt, or whatever you have in stock)
•  2 tea spoons baking soda
• touch of (sea/Himalaya) salt
• touch of cinnamon
• 3 table-spoons coconut palm oil
• 1 table-spoon honey (or agave sirup or 3 chopped, pitted dates)
•  chopped walnuts
•  grated coconut (2 table spoons)

Preheat the oven to 175 ºC. Use two separate bowls, one for dry ingredients and one for wet. First blend the oat flakes in the blender or kitchen machine, add to dry ingredients bowl. (Or use oatmeal). Add the almond and coconut flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda.
Peel and chop 3 figs and do the same with the bananas. Mix in the blender – slowly – and pour this in the other bowl on top of the dry mix. Add the eggs, coconut palm oil and honey, slowly whisk these ingredients by hand.
Finally add 3/4 of the chopped walnuts, grated coconut and chopped (peeled) leftover figs and mix it slowly. Done!

Pour the batter into a baking tin, covered with greaseproof paper. Decorate with walnuts and slices of figs. Bake for about 45 minutes. Or after a wooden skewer inserted comes out clean, in which case your sugar-free banana bread is ready. Leave for 10 minutes in the – open door – oven to cool down before placing it out of the baking tin on a wire rack for complete cooldown. No more worries about what to eat for breakfast, snack or lunch. Even better: top it of with sugar-free plum jam.

ps. store wrapped in the greaseproof paper, will hold fresh for about 3/4 days. To be honest, I don’t know if this is true. This sugar-free banana bread never lasts that long…

I love to start with a mise-en-place. All lined up!

Easy does it, oat flakes are grounded into smooth oat flour in seconds.

Get in the bowl! Dry ingredients mixed together.

Cinnamon rules! I add this healthy and delicious to almost anhything.

Slowly is the key word here, blend the chopped figs and bananes to a creamy texture.

All together now, slowly mix dry and wet ingredients by hand including the eggs.

The finishing touch: chopped walnuts, figs and grated coconut.

A virgin baking tin. Not for long.

Ready to roll. Keep checking after 30 minutes if it is ready. Slow and low heat is good!

Tadaaa. The hard part is no touching or slicing until complete cooldown.

Take one, please!

Store wrapped up in a cool place. If there is something left…