Vegan Bananabread

I think this is the first time I baked something vegan. I have an office mate who's allergic to milk protein and I've been looking out for suitable recipes for her (which is not all that difficult because there are a lot of vegan foodblogs out there). I had bookmarked this recipe here and this weekend seemed to be a good time to try it since we had some overripe bananas lying around. I really liked this cake. I wouldn't serve it for dessert, though. It's, however, perfect for breakfast or as an afternoon snack. The cake is also made without sugar and very suitable for kiddies. Julia was very fond of it.

Recipe

(from Love Nonpareille (find the German version there))

275g spelt flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 pinch of salt

50g walnuts, coarsly chopped (I ground them rather finely in the food processor. I wanted to feed Julia some of the bread, too, and therefore needed to avoid having pieces of nuts in the bread)

40g coconut oil

80g dates (about 6)

50ml almond milk

4 large ripe bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a cake tin (about 25cm) with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and walnuts. In a saucepan, melt coconut oil over low heat and let cool slightly. Add melted oil to the dry ingredients and, with a whisk, mix until combined.  

Pit the dates and, together with the almond milk, mix until you have a paste (you can either do this in a food processor or with hand-held blender). With a fork, mash 3 of the bananas. Add the date-paste, the bananas and the vanilla extract to your dry ingredients and mix with the whisk.

Fill your dough into the prepared tin. Half your left banana length-whise and then half the two pieces again. Place onto your dough. Bake for about 40-50 minutes. Test with a wooden skewer if your cake is done.