Blackberry Banana Loaf

I’ve been picking so many blackberries lately, I had to freeze some for later use as I didn’t know what to do with them all! Then the other day I found a whole heap of ripe bananas in the kitchen, and so this blackberry banana loaf was created. It has much more of a cake-like texture of course, and rises beautifully, but is best eaten in slices either by itself or with a drizzle of blackberry jam or nut butter.

Even though the bananas I had were very ripe, I still didn’t find them too sweet, so I chose to add some maple syrup. Not because it’s “unrefined” or healthier than caster sugar, but for the maple flavour, and also because I found a liquid sweetener to work better. If you’ve been blackberry picking lately like me, this is a great way to use them up that isn’t your traditional apple and blackberry crumble.

Makes 1 loaf, around 12 slices

Ingredients:

• 300g flour (wholewheat or spelt works best)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs (or egg replacer to make it vegan)
• 6 tbsp/100g maple syrup (you can always start small and add more to taste)
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 3 large ripe mashed bananas (250-300g)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 50ml milk of choice (I used almond)
• 120g blackberries

What to do:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C
• Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl
• Mash the bananas
• Mix all the wet ingredients in a bowl, including the bananas (minus the blackberries)
• Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and combine
• Gently coat the blackberries in a little flour, then stir them in
• Grease a loaf tin with a little oil, then pour in the mixture
• Bake in the oven for around 45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean
• Leave to cool for a few minutes before attempting to remove from the loaf tin