Super-Quick Sugar-Free Banana Bread with Barley Flour
Look at what I got at a recent dietitian event…
my barley flour samples
Barley Flour samples
So I made this
super-quick sugar free banana bread with barley flour
As a huge fan of pearl barley, which I use all the time
I was most excited to see there’s other barley options now becoming available
pearl barley…a very underutilised grain
I use pearl barley in soups
chicken barley and vegetable soup
And salads
barley and chickpea salad with carrot, beetroot and tahini dressing
In place of rice in fried ‘rice’
fried ‘rice’ with barley
And risotto
barley risotto (trust me it tastes soooo much better than it looks! This is from the days when I was just learning how to photograph food)
Barley is a pretty amazing grain
It’s very low GI and high in soluble fibre
Soluble fibre not only lowers LDL cholesterol but is a fabulous food source for those little microbes that live in your gut – the ones that keep you incredibly healthy
And this style of barley or BARLEYmax is even more special
Why? I hear you ask. Well it has particularly high levels of fibre, and particularly high levels of a type of fibre called resistant starch
Which is a pretty good thing since resistant starch can greatly reduce your risk of bowel cancer – the second biggest cancer killer in Australia
And to find out what else resistant starch can do click here – And here
So I decided to create a very quick to make, healthier style banana bread (which we all know really is cake, right?)
I used dates in place of sugar – similar to this banana cake, ah, I mean bread!
My deeelicious banana date and walnut cake-bread….also uses dates in place of sugar
I replaced only 1/3 of the flour with this fancy new barley flour as I wasn’t really sure what it was going to be like
But honestly, you would never know it was in there
Next time I’ll try 1/2 barley, 1/2 regular flour
I added psyllium husks and chia seeds to keep the texture soft as when baking without sugar often the texture can be coarse and dry
Which worked well as the texture is lovely and soft
And to save time, I made the cake/bread or whatever you want to call it entirely in my thermomix
But any food processor will do the job just as well
this cake is sweetened entirely with these gorgeous Medjool dates
This banana bread would make a great addition to a healthy lunchbox – in fact, your kids won’t even know its healthy!
It’s possibly even healthy enough to have for breakfast!
I do hope you give it a go and if you do, let me know what you think
I hope you enjoy it as much as we did
In fact my husband said its deeeelicious 🙂
- 3 tablespoons (60 grams) coconut oil
- 2 large extra ripe bananas, peeled (320 grams of flesh)
- 3 eggs (170 grams)
- 8 medjool dates, pitted (150 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- ⅓ cup (50 grams) barley flour
- ⅔ cup (85 grams) wholemeal plain or spelt flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon psyllium husks
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 5 teaspoons (20 grams) chia seeds
- Preheat oven to 170 degrees C and line a standard loaf tin with greaseproof paper
- Start by melting coconut oil either in microwave, on stove top or in bowl of thermomix
- Add oil to your food processor bowl (if not already in your thermomix) along with bananas, eggs, dates and vanilla paste
- Blend together until smooth - 30 seconds speed 5 in thermomix
- Sift together barley flour, wholemeal flour, baking powder, psyllium husks and cinnamon
- Add to food processor bowl along with chia seeds
- Pulse to mix together, or mix for 5 seconds on speed 5 in thermomix
- Pour mixture into prepared loaf tin and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean
- Allow to cool before slicing and enjoying
A lovely addition to this cake would be some chunks of crystallised ginger…yum!
For a vegan version, replace eggs with linseed eggs (1 egg = 1 Tablespoon ground linseeds + 3 Tablespoons water and allow to sit for 10 mins before using). And if you do, please let me know how it turns out 🙂
