Every Christmas I get fierce nostalgic for home and miss my Mum enormously who taught me how to bake.
I've been craving warm wholegrain soda breads fresh from the oven as the season gets damper and grey.
It's hard to make Irish Soda Bread without a little wheat as wholemeal wheat flour largely makes up a soda bread recipe so unfortunately this is not gluten-free. You can of course play around with other gluten-free flours instead of the spelt or the wholemeal but if you can leave them in I'd love you to as the insoluble fibre in both the spelt and the wholemeal wheat play a big part in this loaf helping your bowels!
Teff Banana Soda Bread
Ingredients
- 200g Brown Teff Flour (please use this one if you can and support Ethiopian farming)
- 60g Wholegrain Spelt Flour (I use this one)
- 30g Wholemeal Flour (I use this one)
- 50g Sicilian Hazelnuts (I use these ones but you can use almonds instead or whatever ground nut you have access to)
- 30g Sprouted Milled Flaxseed (for me this one is the best!)
- 2 Large Fairtrade Bananas (280g peeled)
- 1tsp Sea Salt
- 1tsp Bicarb
- 1tbsp Maple Syrup
- 1tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 medium organic egg
- 50ml organic olive oil
- 150ml cold tap water
Method
- Bring your oven up to 190 degrees fan. Line a 2 lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper. This is the one I've been using for years.
- Mix all the dry ingredients together.
- In a separate bowl whisk the egg, then add the olive oil, water and ACV before giving it another light whisk. Mash the bananas on a separate plate.
- Make a well in the middle of the dry mixture, then add the wet mix followed by the maple syrup and mashed banana.
- Stir it all together until the ingredients are well bound. It will be rather wet and you won't be able to handle it with your hands.
- Spoon the mixture into your lined loaf tin. It's important that your tin is completely lined with paper, otherwise the dough will stick to the tin.
- Smooth the top with a knife before placing your loaf in the oven to bake for an hour at 190 degrees fan.
- Once baked, remove your loaf from the tin and cool on a wire rack tray before cutting into it. It will crumble if you cut it whilst still hot :(
I absolutely adore this loaf fresh from the oven for breakfast with salted butter and rhubarb & cardamom jam from London Borough of Jam. Served with a hot cup of milky english breakfast tea or a filtered Ethiopian brew I wish I could sit forever indulging in it all over and over and over again. The next morning I'll have it toasted with the exact same combination and will do so every morning until it's time to bake another one!
Once cooled, this loaf is super fluffy to eat the day you bake it. Make sure you have your first slice just with butter so that you can taste just how good mashed banana elevates my Irish Soda Bread! :)
Then Happy Poo'ing later that day! ;)
Big love,
Your Baker Girl - Karen x