This is the perfect mash up of banana bread and cornbread in one! Plus it's a blank canvas. See how I make the base recipe, then the possibilities are endless. Get creative with adding different flavors to make it savory or sweet.
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Today I'm baking, which is not something that I do very often, but this is a recipe I’ve been wanting to share with you all for a while. I actually teased it several weeks back in I think one of my CSA videos. I'll try to link it in case you haven't seen it. But in that video I showed it along with a meal I was having and said I was going to share the recipe, but then it got really hot and I didn't want to be baking.
But we finally have had a little bit of a break from the heat so I thought it was a good day to go ahead and make this, plus I had some ripe bananas that needed to be used which is one ingredient you need for this recipe.
Two of my favorite baked goods are
corn bread and banana bread, and this is basically mashup of those. So it's a
banana cornbread, and it could be made more sweet or more savory. The version
I'm showing you today is pretty plain, but you could sweeten it up with some
date sugar, cinnamon, ginger, maybe some fruit. Or you could make it more
savory and add herbs like parsley and scallions, maybe spice it up a little bit
with some hot peppers.
But we're just going to do the
basic banana cornbread today. I personally have never been much of a baker
mostly because I'm lazy in the kitchen and baking is so complicated usually.
You have to measure everything precisely, plus I always make a big mess.
I've actually found that since
switching to a whole food vegan diet I don't mind baking as much. You don't have
to worry about cross-contamination with eggs or the sticky gooey feeling of
oil.
When you’re using whole foods it
makes it a lot easier, plus you don't have to worry as much about being precise
with your measurements because the reason why baking is so precise is usually
in your traditional baked goods you're trying to go fora very particular
texture.
And you can get that when you're
using refined flours and sugars, but when you're using whole food ingredients
you’re never going to get that perfect texture anyway. So I find that I don't
have to worry quite as much about perfectly measuring everything. When you’re
using a whole grain flour versus a refined flour, the texture is going to be a
little more rustic. So let's gather all the ingredients and see how it's made.
How I Developed the Recipe
So the way I came up with the
recipe is I actually started with the cornbread recipe that came on the package,
and I made it vegan and then also used a little bit closer to whole food
ingredients.
The recipe on the back of my cornmeal
calls for the cornmeal, buttermilk, which I'm going to make out of soy milk and
apple cider vinegar, all purpose flour, instead of that I decided to use oat flour.
I left the sugar out completely.
I left the salt out. And then I'm
using the baking powder, the baking soda, and then it also calls for eggs and
melted butter, and my bananas and flaxseed are pretty much taking the place of
that oil and egg mixture.
Recipe
And since I'm using cornmeal and
gluten-free oats, this is a gluten-free cornbread. Here’s how I make it. The
first thing I'm going to do is make my buttermilk replacement. So I have three
quarters of a cup of soy milk. To make a vegan buttermilk you need to use a plant
milk that has a higher protein content so that would be something like soy milk
or a pea protein milk.
And then I'm adding a half a tablespoon
of apple cider vinegar, so you simply pour the apple cider vinegar into the soy
milk, let it sit for a few minutes, and it will start to curdle. Next I have my
bananas. I've already put the bananas in a nice big bowl and we're goanna mash
those with a fork.
You want to make sure to use some
really ripe bananas so they're very sweet. I left out the sugar from the
original recipe so the only sweetness we have here is from the bananas.
Again if you wanted to make this
a little sweeter though you could add some date sugar for some extra sweetness.
Once our bananas are mashed I’m
going to add a tablespoon of ground flaxseed. And mix that around. Next I have
my oat flour. I don't ever buy oat flour I just take rolled oats and blend them
up in a little tiny blender, so you have this nice oat flour.
I started with one cup of rolled
oats before blending so it'll end up being a little bit less than a cup of oat flour
if you were just using oat flour. So I’ll add that into our banana mixture. And
then next I have a cup of the cornmeal. And we'll mix that around, and I'm
going to switch to a spoon. Then I have the baking powder and baking soda.
I'll have a recipe with the exact
amounts in a blog post linked below. And just that quickly our soy milk has
curdled. I don't know if you can see that. So you've just made your own
homemade buttermilk, and we'll add that in and then mix everything. And that is
what your batter will look like.
And then you could choose a
casserole dish or a muffin tin. The one I'm using is 8 by 11 inches. And if you
wanted to you could put parchment paper in this, but I find that it doesn't stick
too much, and anything that does stick you just have to soak it in hot water
and then wash it off and it'll come right off. And then gently spread it out.
And my oven has been preheating to 375, Sowell pop this in the oven for about
35 minutes.
Alright my friends, it has been
35 minutes and our banana cornbread is done. It smells so good in here. Just
imagine your favorite banana bread and cornbread baking at the same time.
Of course it's always good to let
your baked goods cool a little bit, but nobody has time for that right? So I'm goanna
dig right in.Every time I’ve made this, 35 minutes has been perfect, but
everyone's oven is a little bit different. Soto know when it's done, it'll be
perfectly golden all the way across with these little cracks so you can see
some of the banana peeking through.
So a toothpick method won't
really work because of the bananas it'll still be sticky, but you can press
gently and it'll be pretty uniform throughout with just a little bit of give.
And then since I didn't use parchment paper, I always go around with a knife to
help free it from the sides and make it a little easier to get out. [Music] And
then it's always a trick making sure you get it out nice and pretty.
Taste Test
Lets see if we can do it. Oh
yeah. Alright time for the taste test. It has a nice crispy crust on the
outside and the inside is a little gooey with little crunchy bits of cornmeal
throughout. And it smells so good. This is great just to eat by itself, but it
would go great with a chili, and like I said you could make it sweeter, you
could drizzle some date syrup on this and eat it for breakfast. I hope you'll
give this recipe a try. Thanks for visited and I'll see you next time!
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