What if I told you that your favourite banana bread recipe isn’t just a banana bread recipe?
- You can make tweaks to the flours, from a 50/50 blend of white and wholewheat flours to 100% whole grain or experiment with less popularly used flours like spelt, teff, buckwheat etc
- Play with spices and flavourings (think beyond vanilla): nutmeg and cinnamon are favorites, but what about cardamom or ginger or even a Chinese 5 spice powder if you’re adventurous!
- Brown sugar is my go to for banana bread and you can choose either light or dark brown sugar for a richer molasses taste but there’s nothing to stop you from using coconut sugar or other alternative sweeteners
- Do you go for butter or oil? What about browned butter, ghee, cold pressed coconut oil or even a splash of sesame oil, say whaaaat?!?!
- Then there are all the add-ins you can throw in. From a range of chips – dark chocolate, white chocolate, caramel or butterscotch chips – to toffee bits, bits of heath bars, dried fruits, fresh berries, nuts, seeds…the possibilities are truly endless.
- Last but not least you can even sprinkle stuff on top of your banana bread before baking it. Cinnamon sugar, pearl sugar, oats, sliced bananas, streusel, crumble, even more chips!
You could literally make a different banana bread each day for a few years with just one recipe!
But when I said your banana bread recipe isn’t just a banana bread recipe, I actually didn’t meant all the add-ins and tweaks I just mentioned, I meant changing the bananas themselves! I know, I know, why are we messing with a good thing? But variety is the spice of life! And what’s better than knowing that a tried and true recipe can easily transform into another one (or few)?
What’s the secret? Texture! Fruits and veggies with the same consistency can often be substituted in a recipe such as this one. So for example the first Ackee Bread I ever made was a banana muffin recipe in which I replaced the amount of banana with the same amount of ackee.
This also works for pumpkins, sweet potatoes, carrots and ripe plantains. Any fruit or veggie that can be steamed and isn’t too starchy or dry when it cooks will work. You’ll simply steam or boil them till soft then puree them so the consistency matches that of the banana.
So with that one trusty recipe you now have Ackee Bread, Pumpkin Bread, Sweet Potato Bread, Carrot Bread and Plantain Bread and lets not forget that all the variations and add-ins mentioned for the banana bread can also be applied to these, that’s hundreds of thousands of loaves!
Can you think of another fruit or veggie whose consistency could lend itself well to transform a banana bread recipe? If so please share in the comments section below, I’d love to give it a try!
Now to the main event: The King Arthur Flour 9 Week Bake the Bag Challenge featuring their White Wholewheat Flour but with an Amazing Ackee twist of course!
How it works:
Step 1: Sign up
Step 2: Buy a 5lb bag of white wholewheat flour
Step 3: Check email weekly for challenge recipe and make it, figure out where the ackee will go and make it! 😉
First up: Whole-Grain Banana Bread! Which easily transformed into Whole-Grain Ackee Bread with Sunflower Seeds.
Quick note on sunflower seeds: they contain chlorophyll and so react with the baking powder and soda in the recipe when heated. Once cooled they will turn green, kinda freaky looking but perfectly fine to eat. I cut and shot this loaf before it had cooled completely so there are no green specks in the photo. Although we saved some of it to see how the flavour and texture changed with the days I forgot to snap more photos.
I was pleasantly surprised with the result of this loaf, usually when you use all wholegrain in a baked good it tends to be heavy and dense. On the first day you could feel a tiny bit of grain from the flour but not unpleasantly so. By the second day it had mellowed and you couldn’t tell that it was whole-grain flour at all! The use of dark brown sugar made for deep caramel and molasses notes. The cinnamon sugar on top was a lovely touch and it was delicious with a cup of black coffee.
I’ve shared the recipe below with the tweaks I made and included the link to the original below.
How would you transform this recipe? As always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. If you make this or any of the recipes from this site be sure to #amazingackee and @amazingackee so I can see your posts across social media.
Until next time, thanks for stopping by 😊
Whole-Grain Ackee Bread with Sunflower Seeds
Ingredients
For the bread
- 454 g Ackee (parboiled or canned, see notes)
- 99 g Canola oil
- 213 g Dark brown sugar
- 2 Eggs, large
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 226 g White whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 1/2 tsp Baking powder
- 3/4 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Cinnamon, ground
- 57 g Sunflower seeds
For the topping:
- 13 g Raw sugar
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon, ground
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and spray or grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan**;
- Mix together the ackees, brown sugar, oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
- Add the sunflower seeds then sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon over the ackee mixture. Stir well to combine.
- Pour into prepared loaf pan and smooth top.
- Combine the topping ingredients then sprinkle over the top of the loaf.
- Bake the bread for 60 to 75 minutes till it feels firm to the touch and a knife or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
- You may have to cover your bread with foil if it’s browning too quickly. I covered mine at the 40 minute mark.
- When done, let the bread cool in the pan for 15 minutes, remove from the pan and let cool completely on a rack.
- Slice and enjoy!
Notes
https://nutrifox.com/recipes/44232/edit
