Banana pecan bread

I've been contemplating eliminating wheat from my diet for some time. For the past two years, I've been using wholegrain spelt flour mostly to make cakes, breads, sauce, etc. But then I learned from Dr William Davis, author of the (in)famous 'Wheat Belly' that spelt is still a form of wheat, and while not as harmful as modern wheat, it isn't necessarily good either. This hastened my resolve to seek better alternatives, such as almond meal and coconut flour. However, the former is rather dear and the latter difficult to find.


Imagine my excitement when I spotted Tiana Coconut Flour in Holland & Barret a couple of weeks ago. Even though I was slightly put off by the price initially, I figured since coconut flour is extraordinarily absorbent and very little of it is needed (in general, in baked goods, 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup coconut flour is the equivalent of 1 cup wheat flour), I bought a bag. I also snatched a couple of bags of ground almond (essentially almond flour). Last weekend, I tried my hands at my first flourless banana pecan bread.

Ingredients

1 C almond flour
1/3 C coconut flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp coarse sea salt, ground
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp organic coconut oil, melted
4 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 C organic honey
1 tbsp vanilla extra
2 tbsp water
1/2 C chopped pecan

Method

Batter in the pan

Cooling in the pan

1. Preheat oven to 175°C and grease one loaf pan if required (I used a silicone bread pan so I skipped this step).
2. In a medium-sized bowl, combine mashed bananas and melted coconut oil and mix thoroughly.
3. Add in the eggs, honey, vanilla, and water. Whisk until combined.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the sifted almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine thoroughly.
5. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Then stir in the chopped pecan.
6. Pour the batter to the pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Rotate once halfway through baking.
7. Remove the bread from the oven and allow to cool in pan for about 5 minutes. Then transfer to wire racks to continue cooling.

Cooling on rack

Slice of bread

The result was an incredibly scrumptious bread! It's light and bouncy in texture with the sweetness of bananas and a hint of coconut.

Two things I would change:
Rather than chopped up the pecan, I'd halve them so the flavour comes through more, and also, I'm not sure about the salt. I know salt contributes to the flavour and texture of baked goods, but perhaps because I used too much or perhaps because I used ground coarse sea salt, there were some bites of the bread that tasted salty. Next time I will try less salt or perhaps fine sea salt.

Tea time!