Banana bread

Homemade Spelt Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips

There’s something so comforting about homemade banana bread baking in the oven. This is one of those simple recipes I love making for the family. Soft, moist and naturally sweetened with ripe bananas and maple syrup, with little pockets of melted chocolate throughout.

Why I Choose Spelt Flour? 

In our home, we eat gluten-free around 70% of the time. But when I do use flour, I almost always choose organic spelt flour.

Spelt is an ancient grain that has been cultivated for thousands of years and has retained many of its traditional characteristics, unlike much of the modern wheat we eat today.

Modern wheat has undergone generations of selective breeding and hybridisation. Hybridisation simply means crossing two different varieties of a plant to create a new variety with desired characteristics, such as higher yields or improved resistance to disease. This combines genetic material from both parent plants, creating new genetic combinations.

Spelt has also been bred over time, but many traditional varieties have undergone less intensive breeding than modern commercial wheat.

I personally love choosing organic spelt flour, especially for its beautiful nutty flavour and because I prefer traditional, minimally refined ingredients wherever possible.

 

Ingredients

• 75g coconut oil, melted
• 150g maple syrup
• 2 eggs
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 56g milk of your choice
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt, celtic salt 
• 1 tsp cinnamon and nutmeg 
• 220g spelt flour, organic 
• 80–100g chocolate chips (dark chocolate is lovely!)

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the melted coconut oil and maple syrup.
3. Add the eggs and mix until well combined.
4. Mash the bananas and stir them into the mixture.
5. Add the milk, vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
6. Stir in the baking soda, followed by the spelt flour. Gently mix until everything is just combined.
7. Fold through the chocolate chips, saving a handful to sprinkle over the top.
8. Pour the batter into your prepared loaf tin and sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips over the surface.
9. Bake at 170°C for approximately 45–60 minutes, or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (a little melted chocolate is fine!).
10. Allow to cool in the tin for 10–15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

 

A little tip

The riper your bananas, the sweeter and more flavourful your banana bread will be!

I love enjoying a slice slightly warm, with a little butter on top. It's also delicious toasted the next morning.

 

Enjoy!