Eggless, whole wheat Banana Loaf (without butter )

 

                                           

Hello Readers!!

I hope you all are keeping well!

Welcome to the easy cooking blog no.14

 

Introduction

My blogs are about health-friendly and straightforward food recipes. 

 

These days we all want easy yet delicious food in our menu. So, many of us always try to either look for new recipes or tend to make modifications to the existing ones as per our liking and preferences. I am also not the exception so always prefer home cooked food instead of buying it from outside. That doesn't mean I am against takeaways or restaurant food, and certainly love to have it occasionally; but do not want to make it an integral part of my life at the same time- you know what I mean, right ???? 

So, as I mentioned above, I prefer home-cooked meals, baking has never been my forte and never got to try this art of cooking when I was in my home country not because I never liked it but because there were too many bakery shops around where I could easily go to and buy whatever I like from. At the same, I was bit sceptical to try my hands on it as well due to having no basic training of doing it. Moreover, baking was not prevalent in Indian homes until the past few years when people started tying their hands on  making cookies, bread, cakes etc., for special occasions at home only for different reasons. 

Coming back to my baking journey, I didn't know the word "B" of baking even after living in South Africa for almost a decade. I would buy from the market whenever I felt the need to relish any bakery item. It is only during this pandemic when I was able to unleash this passion of mine. When I started trying my hands on baking, I started falling in love for it. Now. I can proudly say that I can bake most of the goodies at home by myself, so for our special days, no more store-bought cakes, and bakery stuff. 

I love baking at home because you can actually control what and how much you want to use any of the ingredients required for a particular recipe as per your health preferences and liking. For instance, I try to avoid using maida (all-purpose flour) as much as possible to minimize its consumption, as it is a bit difficult to digest for some people. At the same time, I also wanted to find an alternative to maida so that I can quench my sugar cravings without any guilt.

Some people avoid using sugar instead they use jaggery in cookies, cakes and other items. Baking at home gives you the liberty to actually add or omit any of the ingredients required to make these goodies as per your health preferences. Though the texture and the taste will be different altogether when using alternates to the butter, eggs and sugar. You can try with different substitutes and find your desired recipes.  

 

The recipe for today is extremely healthy yet delicious commonly known as "banana loaf". This is a dry, fruit cake that goes very well with the tea, coffee, or milk. I will share my version of this, which is without maida, butter, and eggs. So let me share the beautiful ingredients we need to make this delicious atta banana loaf. Skip the milk and use water if vegans want to bake this beautiful cake.  

Check out my other interesting recipes as well by clicking on the links given below!

Atta chocolate cake (no butter, no maida and no eggs)

Bread pakoda (perfect snack recipe)

Aloo paratha (potato stuffed flatbread)   

 

 "ATTA Banana loaf" (without maida, butter, and eggs).

 

Ingredients                                      Qty

Atta (whole wheat flour)             1.5 Cups 

Banana                                           2

Sugar                                             1/2 Cup

any vegetable oil or ghee           1/2 Cup

milk powder or fresh milk       3 tbsp. or 1/2 fresh milk

cinnamon powder                       1 tsp.

Baking soda                                1/2 tsp.

Baking powder                           1/2 tsp.

Vinegar                                       1/2 tsp.

Vanilla essence                          1 tsp.

Cashews                                   handful of it

water                                          q.s.

 

Cooking time:  can be prepared in under 60 minutes (including baking time).

Procedure:

 

Take all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and evenly mix them together using a spoon or beater (Do not add dry fruits at this stage. Otherwise, you will find it hard to beat the batter nicely). 

Now, add the oil, vinegar, vanilla essence, milk, and banana to a blender, blend nicely, and keep it aside.

later add this blend of banana, milk, and oil little by little to the dry ingredients and whisk everything gently. If the mixture does not come together, add some water or milk to make a smooth and runny slurry (Note: always remember to beat the batter in one direction only, clockwise or anticlockwise).

Once you get the desired pouring like consistency of the batter (check the picture given below for the reference purpose), add all the dry nuts and give it one last mix so that dry fruits are mixed well with the batter (please ensure that the batter is not too thick or too runny for better results). 

Take a baking pan, line it with the butter or baking paper, pour the batter into the pan by tapping the pan couple of times just to make sure that all the extra air present in the batter escapes. 

                                       

 

Preheat the oven at 1800C and bake the cake for about 30 to 40 minutes (cooking time varies from oven to oven, so keep monitoring its progress at the regular intervals, and confirm its cooking by poking a toothpick in the cake, if the toothpick comes out dry that means your cake is ready).

 

Let it sit on the cooling tray for a while before cutting it into different shapes as you like. 

    

Serve it with hot tea or any drink of your choice.

 

Tips and Tricks!

 

The texture of the cake will be different with different ingredients used. With all purpose flour cakes comes out spongier, as this flour is very fine and have a tendency to rise itself.

 

You can use eggs, butter or all-purpose flour and bake this loaf as per your taste. I personally see no difference in the taste after using whole wheat flour without butter and eggs.

 

Do not beat the mixture too much and do not forget to beat it in one direction only.

Heat of the oven varies, so keep checking in between and standardised your own temperature and baking time.

 

Once the loaf is ready make it sit on the cooling rack, do not slice while hot. It will give you broken pieces of loaf.

 

Serving suggestions:

 

This is perfect for an evening tea break and can be preserved in an airtight container for 3-4 days. 

 

It can be a perfect dessert, enjoy this cake with vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, or ganache if you wish to.  

 

I like to have it with a milkshake, tea, or sometime with hot chocolate milk. It tastes divine. 

I hope you like this recipe of mine. 

Try it and do share with me how you like it.

Good luck!

Neha