Do you have those days when you have really ripe bananas languishing on the counter and you don’t really know what to do with them? This really easy banana bread comes to the rescue! When I say easy, it really is almost fool proof as I made this on a busy weeknight after dinner. I wanted some kind of bread-like dessert and the poor spotty bananas were staring me in the face. Try it! This is a great natural, gluten free alternative to the highly sugary wheat flour-based banana breads being served in cafe’s. Serious side effect: the house will smell heavenly. Baked banana bread has got to be the most comforting homey smell ever 
Enjoy!
*As a timesaving tip by the way, I always used to stock a container of almond meal (approx. 4 cups ) in my fridge for these emergency baking expeditions. Nowadays I just stock almonds as I have a high powered blender (Nutribullet) that can zap the almonds into almond meal in under 1 minute! High speed blenders such as Vitamix or Nutribullet (a much smaller version) are great investments in the kitchen.
Ingredients:
2-3 very ripe bananas (2 if large, 3 if medium)
2 cups almond meal (or 2 cups almonds, ground up finely in a high speed blender)
3 eggs
1/4 cup extra virgin coconut oil or macadamia oil
2 Tbsp butter (chopped into tiny pieces)
2 Tbsp maple syrup**
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder
Optional: 1/ 4 cup dark chocolate chips or 1/2 cup blueberries … or both!
** You can substitute raw honey.
Make It!
Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees. Mash the bananas and mix with all liquid ingredients, including the chopped up butter. I like adding butter this way as it saves time (instead of melting it first) and one gets the nicest distribution of moist spots in the bread after! Mix together dry ingredients (almond meal and baking powder). If your baking powder is clumpy (as mine gets sometimes), make sure you put it through a sifter or tea strainer. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix through. Transfer to small loaf tin or ceramic loaf pan and bake for approx. 45-50 minutes. As per the usual test to check if it’s all done, insert a skewer stick in and once it comes out clear, it’s ready! Great for breakfast, snacks or dessert!
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