Banana Bread. Don’t those two words just make you smile? Banana bread is such a classic recipe, and although it has been tried, tested, and shared by many, I don’t think it ever gets old. Although I do already have a Turmeric & Cacao Banana Bread recipe on my blog already, I recently just felt like going back to basics with a far simpler recipe with more traditional banana bread vibes. Being me, I couldn’t resist adding in a couple of extras like the walnuts and dried apricots – but I think they add fantastic depth and texture to this loaf. All taste testing I have inflicted on family and friends to date has been very well received (total positivity which is always a bonus!) – so I’m sharing this with YOU guys to try yourselves at home!

Recipe (Makes 1 Large Loaf)

Ingredients

• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 whole eggs
• 2 large ripe bananas + 1/2 banana sliced length-ways for decoration
• 1/2 cup of honey or maple syrup
• 1/3 cup of melted coconut oil or melted cacao butter (I use Cocobrew Cacao Butter)
• 180g oats, blended into flour (I use Flahavan’s)
• 50ml of milk of choice
• 50g of chopped walnuts
• 1 small handful of dried apricots, sliced into little chunks

Method 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C (fan oven). Line a bread baking tin with grease-proof paper or spray with cooking spray.
2. Take a large mixing bowl and a smaller one. Into the large mixing bowl add the dry ingredients – oats, baking soda, cinnamon and chopped walnuts.
3. Using a power blender (I use my Nutri-bullet) or a food processor, blend the bananas, eggs, milk, melted coconut oil and milk. Leave the honey aside for now.
4. Create a small well in the centre of the dry ingredients, and pour in the blended wet mixture. Grab a large spoon, and stir until you have a batter that is more liquid than solid in consistency!
5. Next, add the honey, and stir again to mix it in.
6. Finally, fold in the dried apricots. Pour the bread batter into your lined baking tin.
7. Smooth down the batter evenly. Take your sliced banana half, and lay it on top!
8. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Then take the loaf out, and cover it with tinfoil (it should be browned by now). Bake for another 15 minutes.
9. Stick a tooth-pick in at the 1 hour mark. It should come out mostly clean!
10. Remove from the oven and allow the loaf to cool for 30 minutes before tucking in!

Enjoy gang! I really hope you love this recipe as much as my family, friends and I do! Tag me if you try it out – you know where to find me, @theirishbalance on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook!

Ciara 🙂 x