Bread Baking Day! Banana Oat Bread, Yum!

The lovely Astrid of Pulchen’s Food Blog is this month’s hostess for Bread Baking Day number 9. She proposed the fabulous theme of oat breads for the month of April, and I was thrilled because I am a newbie bread baker, and only have one oat bread under my belt (and it wasn’t terribly successful…Mr. Fish referred to it as “tasting like bread for old people”. Thanks mon amour.) The round-up is still a few days away, so if you just can’t wait, go visit Susan over at Wild Yeast. She graciously hosted our event last month, and here is the round-up.

I had images of golden, steaming loaves of oaty-goodness coming out of the oven, and was scouting around for a hearty loaf to use for delicious sandwiches. Finding a few recipes that interested me, I just didn’t come across the recipe (that being said, I can’t wait for this months BBD round-up to see what delights the others baked up!).

I woke up early one weekend morn to make some banana bread for the Guppy and Mr. Fish for a sweet breakfast treat, and then it hit me: Banana Oat Bread! (Luckily Banana Oat Bread is rather soft and moist, so it didn’t hurt.)

This seemed like a brilliant breakfast bread filled with the sweet goodness of oats and bananas, and I looked through my (very small collection) of cookbooks and came up empty. Recipes for regular banana bread, yep. I also had the “old people” oat bread recipe from my previous attempt at oat bread domination. After searching the web for a good Vegan recipe, I realized that I’d just have to create my own! (mostly because I didn’t have a huge amount of time to devote to my quest of searching the net, I’m sure there are some good ‘ens out there…) This bread was very moist and delicious, it reminded me of a sort of pudding-bread. It had a dense crumb, intense banana flavour, and was even better the next morning! You could easily add chocolate chips or walnuts to make things even more fabulous…

Shellyfish’s Vegan Banana Oat Bread

• 110g ap flour
• 110g whole wheat flour
• 90g rolled oats
• 70g sugar
• 70g xylitol
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 3 tablespoons ground flax seeds
• 6 tablespoons water
• 2 medium very ripe & well-mashed bananas
• 60ml vegetable oil or melted non-hydrogenated vegan buttery spread
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract (yeah, it’s a lot, you could use less- we’re big on vanilla, folks).
• Non-dairy milk as needed
• chopped walnuts or chocolate chips, optional

Pre-heat your oven to 350f/170c and get your pan ready!

Mix* the flax seeds and water in a small bowl and set aside. Sift together all the dry ingredients except the oats in a large bowl. Mix the banana-mash, oil, and vanilla in a small bowl, then add to the flax mixture. Blend well*, then add the dry ingredients in two or three small batches, and stir until just blended. Then fold in the oats and optional walnuts or chocolate chips.

Bake until your knife comes out clean (or smeary if you use the chocolate chips of course). For me this was about 45 minutes

*By mix, stir, etc, I mean with your big ‘ole trusty wooden spoon, kids.