Roasted Carob Banana Bread with Wholemeal Spelt Four
As most of you know, I’m not much of a baker and focus mostly on raw treats instead. But banana bread is one of Maddy’s favourites and I love making it since I’m always finding myself with left over over-ripe bananas that need to be used up. I usually make this banana bread with chocolate chips but I decided to try something different and use carob chips instead. Back in the day carob used to be promoted as a healthier alterative to chocolate, because carob did not contain “caffeine” and was less stimulating. (It has since been discovered that chocolate has very minimal levels of caffeine but instead has a substance called theobromine which has similar affects to caffeine but is about 10 times weaker and is released into the blood stream at a much slower rate. It is also beneficial for lowering blood pressure and stimulating a positive mood.) Since all the new health information has come about chocolate, or rather, cacao, I feel like carob has been forgotten. Now carob is mostly used as an alternative to chocolate for doggy treats since dogs can’t eat chocolate. How sad. Although nothing will ever replace chocolate for me I actually really enjoy the taste of carob and feel like it should be utilized more often. The flavour is very warm and caramel like and is also naturally sweet, so there is no need to add any other sweeteners if your watching your sugar intake. It is also rich in vitamins and minerals and has anti inflammatory effects.
It’s actually quite difficult to find good quality carob chips where I live. Although most don’t use sugar, they nearly always contain dairy, which kind of defeats the purpose. I stumbled across some super cute raw vegan carob chips on etsy and couldn’t wait to give them a go.The main trick with carob is not to eat I thinking it will taste like chocolate. It just wont! But it really is lovely in its own unique way.
Besides all the carob, I also used wholemeal spelt flour in this banana bread and mixed in a whole bunch of mixed seeds and nuts. Makes it nice and hearty and delicious!
| Roasted Carob Banana Bread with Wholemeal Spelt Flour | Print |
- 1 ¾ cup sifted wholemeal spelt flour
- ⅓ cup roasted carob powder
- 3 TBSP coconut sugar
- 4 TBSP coconut oil
- 4 ripe bananas (or 5 if bananas are small)
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon powder
- ¾ cup mixed nuts, seeds and carob chips (I used walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and carob chips)
- preheat oven to 180 C
- In one bowl mash bananas with a fork and combine with melted coconut oil and vanilla extract
- In a separate bowl combine spelt flour, carob powder, coconut sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and baking powder.
- Add your banana mixture to your flour mixture and mix until just combined
- Add desired nuts, seeds and carob chips and mix through
- Line a tin with baking paper or use silicon baking tin and bake at 180 C for 50min – 1 hour
- Cool before serving. Enjoy!
