Here’s another banger to get you through lockdown, and the best thing about this one is you don’t need flour; you can just whizz up some rolled oats and Bob’s your aunt! It’s a dense, filling sweet loaf just perfect with a big smear of butter or coconut oil. And it’s scrumptious as toasted. The recipe is also dairy-free – and gluten-free IF you’re okay with oats (if you are coeliac, it’s probably not for you).
Works best in smaller tin. If you have a large loaf tin you may want to 1.5 x the ingredients.
Prep time – 15 minutes
Cooking time – 1 hour
Ingredients
1 tbsp ground linseed (flax seed) soaked in 3 tbsp cold water (or use chia seeds)
2 1/2 cups rolled oats (use GF if necessary)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup plant-based milk (or regular milk)
1/3 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar)
3 tbsp neutral oil (grapeseed, rice bran, light olive oil)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup frozen blueberries (optional)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts, for topping (optional but delicious)
Method
Preheat the oven to 170c regular bake and line a small/medium loaf tin with baking paper all the way up the sides.
Add the oats to a food processor and whizz them on a high speed for about 5 minutes until you have a fine but grainy flour – tipping the processor up every now and then to combine them evenly. It will still be a little coarse, and won’t look as fine as normal flour, that’s okay. Tip into a large mixing bowl along with the baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Stir to combine.
Add the mashed bananas to another bowl with the milk, sugar, oil and vanilla. Stir, then add to the flour mixture along with the linseed mixture and stir until all in combined evenly. Stir through the blueberries.
Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin and sprinkle with the walnuts (if using).
Bake in the oven for about an hour, or until a skewer poked in comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then carefully transfer to a cooling rack.
It’s easier to slice after it’s cooled right down – even refrigerated – but it’s yummy to eat hot anyway, who cares if it crumbles a bit! I keep it in the fridge.
Serve with dairy-free spread, coconut oil or butter. It’s also really delicious toasted with honey.
Keeps for a couple of days covered at room temperature or in the fridge.
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*(I’ve adapted this recipe from Anthony William, who’s my favourite fruit & vege guru. )
Thank you Chelsea, this is my go-to loaf recipe! I have used it as a base for many variations such as quince, cinnamon and apple but today it will be banana and lavender to share for a winter fireside afternoon tea with friends. Love it, thank you : )
Hi Chelsea, can you please tell me how much ‘flour’ the oats give you? I have oat flour in the back of pantry and would be great to use it up so I can hopefully skip a step :) thanks!
Also, I looooove your 10-second Aioli. I have since tweaked it to my personal taste and my family loved getting jars of it while I experimented last year.
Hey Chelsea, can I not use sugar? Will it change the consistency? I want to make it for my 11month old daughter and don’t want to give her sugar just yet.
You might want to check out the banana loaf from Tasty, it is refined sugar free x
Hey, would this freeze okay?
Yes, a tip is to slice it up and put baking paper between the slices for easy grabbable slices x
For the linseed – would LSA work? Looking forward to trying :)
This is so good!!! Thanks for the recipe. Can’t wait for your book ????
This sounds yum! Is there a way to swap out the brown sugar for stevia/natvia, and what proportion would work best?
The entire family loves this recipe, I’ve made two so far and it doesn’t last long so Yummy. Thanks so much for sharing it.
I don’t eat bananas, could I sub a stewed fruit?
Can I use normal flour if I don’t have oats? Would it be the same ratio? Thanks :)
Thanks for this recipe Chelsea, I love it. Was delicious for breakfast. I used an egg instead of the flaxseed as I didn’t have any.
Can you put bread maker machine equivalents as I don’t have a oven thanks x
I can’t wait to try this for my multiple allergy child, thank you!
Delicious!! I used frozen raspberries and it added a burst of freshness. Used chia seeds.
I don’t have rolled oats but I do have wholemeal flour – could you please tell me how much to use?
Wow! This is Yum! I was so so disheartened when I realised I forgot to add the flaxseed …but it was still awesome!!! Can’t wait to make it again WITH the flaxseed. Thanks for this great recipe.
Just popped it in the oven! Loving the lockdown recipes!!
Don’t have linseed, flax or chia seeds. Can I use an egg or ground almonds?
You can use an egg.
Could I replace the oats with coconut flour?
Delicious. Thanks for sharing.