Banana wholemeal spelt loaf cake

This is a rich, moist and delicious cake as you’d expect with a top-notch banana cake. However, for this recipe I started with wholemeal spelt flour rather than traditional plain white. The final result is not a ‘worthy’ cake as you might expect from a wholegrain flour – but extra rich and with a gorgeous crumb structure.

Notes

I have made this loaf cake in a panibois – that’s a reusable wooden baking form with which you use pre-cut baking liners. My panibois is an ‘archduc’ (they all have lovely names for their sizes) which is equivalent to a small / 1lb loaf tin. So if you don’t have a panibois yourself a greased and floured/lined small loaf tin will do just nicely.

I used Craggs & Co wholemeal spelt for this – the milling is incredibly fine and I like that it is a 100% British product, I confess I was lucky enough to be sent a batch to try (no other incentive though so I hope you feel that I giving an honest opinion, rather than a ‘commercial one’). There are other spelts available and I have in the past used Doves Farm and Shipton Mill flours with good results, but this is geniuinely of excellent quality and clearly recently milled and bagged.

This recipe has been kindly shared on the Craggs & Co website (along with a number of other spelt recipes). Visit their website to find more about spelt flour and their farm up in Sedgefield, near Stockton on Tees – and if you want to try it too you can purchase online.

Also, please note that I used a salted butter for this cake.

Finally, I have given a weight for the double cream rather than a volume – this is easier for the baker. If you have to measure the volume of cream it needs to go into a measuring cup and then into your bowl (another thing to wash, and you lose a little scraping it out). If you weigh it you can put it straight into your bowl with your other ingredients: simple and no mess.

Tip

Weigh out your sugar and then take two tablespoons out of it to mash the bananas with – it makes the mashing easier and will slow down the browning of the bananas a little.

Equipment

• Two large bowls
• A panibois form and paper insert OR a greased and floured (or lined) small loaf tin
• A fork, a spatula, a balloon whisk

Ingredients

• Wholemeal spelt flour – 220g
• Ground almonds – 30g
• Eggs, Large – 2
• Soft brown sugar – 160g
• Salted butter, softened but not melted – 100g [Please use a farm-style, artisan butter such as one from a local farm, a supermarket finest or a French salted butter. Not the ones with rock salt crystals in though!]
• Double cream – 35g
• Baking powder – 1 and 1/4 teaspoons
• Vanilla seeds – half a pod’s worth or 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• Ground cinnamon – 1/2 teaspoon
• Bananas – two very ripe

Method

1. Put your oven on to 180C fan / 200C conventional
2. Have the lined panibois ready or grease a small loaf tin and then either flour it or line it with baking parchment/greaseproof paper
3. In one bowl measure out the sugar
4. Peel the bananas and add to the second bowl
5. Take two tablespoons of the sugar from the first bowl and sprinkle it over the bananas. Mash the bananas into the sugar using the back of a fork
6. Crack the eggs into the other bowl (the one with only sugar in) and whisk the sugar and eggs together until they are a little foamy and have lightened in colour
7. Fold the flour, baking powder, almonds, cinnamon, vanilla, butter and double cream into the bananas and then finally fold in the fluffed-up eggs and sugar mix
8. Ladle the mix into the panibois or tin and place in the bottom third of your oven
9. Bake for 45 mins – the top will be a rich brown and the cake will spring back when pressed lightly
10. Leave to cool in the panibois or tin for 20 mins, then finish the cooling off on a wire rack
11. Delicious on its own,  or as a dessert served with cream, ice cream (a toffee ice creams goes well) or custard and extra bananas

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