SOURDOUGH BANANA BREAD WITH WALNUTS 

I've read that it's really hard to kill a sourdough starter. Even if you kept it in the back of the fridge and forgot about it for a while, it can still be revived after being fed.

Well, I thought I might have let my one-and-a-half-year-old mother starter die when I took it out of the fridge after weeks and weeks of neglect, refreshed it and it still lay there like sludge the next day.

So I discarded half of it, fed it again and the next day, there was one bubble. One!

Let's do it one more time, I told myself, and if it remained sluggish, it was so long starter.

The next morning, it had climbed up the sides of the glass jar and was foaming like a bubble bath.

There's life in this old thing yet! And I wasn't talking about myself.

Part of the refreshed starter went into making bagels for the June Sourdough Surprises project (a post for June 20), and the other half was used for a banana bread.

Looking around online, I found this recipe for sourdough banana bread at The Fresh Loaf (the recipe lists amounts in cups). After reading through the thread that followed, I took some of the suggestions and decided to change the butter to coconut oil, replace half the white flour with whole wheat and include chopped walnuts.

I was very pleased with the result – burned-the-roof-of-my-mouth-on-a-hot-slice-but-it-didn't-matter pleased. This banana bread rose higher than any sourdough-free ones that I'd baked before. It was quite light, yet substantial at the same time. Made partly with whole grains (I refreshed the starter with whole wheat, but it was originally made with rye flour), coconut oil and walnuts, this cake/bread is low-fat and even nutritious. Also, there's less refined sugar in it since I used very ripe bananas. They had speckled at room temperature and then the skin turned completely black after a few days in the fridge. The natural sugars in the bananas produced such a beautiful fruity aroma as the bread baked and formed a lovely caramelised crust.

It's hard to stay away from sweet snacks and desserts, but at least with this bread, I am not lethargic after the sugar high wears off. Instead, I'm as peppy as a well-fed sourdough starter.

This bread is filling so resist the temptation to cut thick slices

Sourdough Banana Bread with Walnuts

Makes 1 large loaf, about 15 slices  

110g all-purpose flour

110g whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

60g coconut oil

100g-150g caster sugar (amount depends on sweetness of bananas)

1 egg

225g mashed banana (about 3 overripe bananas)

225g refreshed 100%-hydration sourdough starter

90g walnuts, chopped

Grease a 20cm by 9cm loaf pan and preheat the oven at 180°C.

Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt together three times. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat the coconut oil and sugar together until combined. Add the egg and beat until smooth.

Stir in the mashed banana and sourdough starter.

Fold in the flour mixture and finally, the walnuts.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the loaf comes out clean.

Cool in the tin on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from tin and place on the wire rack to cool for as long as you can resist.

More fruity bakes
Almond Cake with Dried Fruit
Copabanana Cake with Fresh Coconut Syrup
Tamarind Date Chutney Cake

BLACK-AND-WHITE CHALLAH TINTED WITH CHARCOAL POWDER  

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from A Taste of Challah, by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

And what beautiful breads they were judging from the ones made by the Daring Bakers (have a look). Here's the link to the recipe and instructions.

I knew I wanted to use bamboo charcoal powder in my challah. You can't taste the charcoal in the bread (I assume it cannot be pleasant) unless you use too much, but it apparently has health benefits. I just like the colour it gives to the bread, and along with the way the challah is braided, this makes for a loaf with striking looks.

Black and white dough; six-braid long loaf and four-braid round loaf

I used a tried-and-true challah recipe from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, divided the dough into two and kneaded bamboo charcoal powder (mixed with a little oil into a paste) into one portion. The amount of powder used is important. Use too little and the colour doesn't pop; in fact, it can turn out to be an unappetising greyish-green colour as I found when I made a spiral rye once. Use too much charcoal powder and the dough might be ashy. I used about two teaspoons.

I sprinkled the tops of the loaves with flax seeds before they went into the oven, but the seeds didn't stick well. The tops should, of course, have been eggwashed first. So, when the loaves came out of the oven, I brushed the tops with honey and pressed the recalcitrant seeds back on. The honey gave the loaves a nice glossy surface.

Chocolate spread and cinnamon add stripes

A few days later, I made another challah using "Ruth's 'Go-To' Whole Wheat Challah" (only half the amount). This is a fantastic recipe! Since she's given it away, I bet it won't be only Ruth's go-to recipe from now on.

Again, I made the dough in two colours. Chocolate spread and cinnamon are added to a third of the dough and the two portions are then layered using instructions from this site. The cardboard baking pan that I used was a little too small and the loaf bulged over the sides as it baked. Not as pretty as it could have been but did it matter? Not one bit.

OATMEAL APPLESAUCE CAKE ~ LOW-FAT AND MOIST 

Here's a quick, low-fat and relatively healthy way to have your cake and eat it too.

I adapted the recipe from a magazine called Diabetic Living, so of course, there's less sugar in it. Most of the natural sweetness comes in the form of unsweetened applesauce, which is a cinch to make at home.

The cake also has a lot of good stuff – whole wheat flour, rolled oats and dried fruit, and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.

The original recipe was made with a bigger quantity of ingredients for more servings, but I cut it down to about two-thirds. It was made with egg replacer (the equivalent of one whole egg), but I used a yolk for the batter. Using the egg white in the batter would have reduced the fat, but I find it tends to make a drier cake as well. And we don't want that, do we?

Since I didn't want to waste the white, I made a meringue-like topping. This adds more crunch but the egg white can be omitted. Just sprinkle the rolled oats and brown sugar on and press into the batter lightly.

Oatmeal Applesauce Cake

Based on a recipe in Diabetic Living magazine, winter 2004

Makes a 20cm square cake

⅔ cup plain flour

⅔ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup rolled oats

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp baking soda

⅛ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

½ cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup butter, softened

1 egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup unsweetened applesauce (preferably homemade; see note)

½ cup dried fruit bits (cranberries, orange peel, crystallised ginger)

Topping

1 egg white

⅓ cup rolled oats

1½ tbsp packed brown sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly grease a 20cm square tin; set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together the two flours, rolled oats, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nutmeg.

In a mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar and butter and beat until mixed.Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and applesauce, beating after each addition, just until combined. Stir in fruit bits. Spread batter into the prepared pan.

For the topping, whisk the egg white until stiff but not dry. Combine the rolled oats and brown sugar and fold into the egg white. Spread mixture onto batter.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack before cutting into bars to serve.

Note: To make applesauce, peel and chop up 2 cooking apples. Place in a saucepan with 2 tbsp water, cover and cook over high heat until the liquid comes to the boil. Turn down the heat to medium low, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until apple is soft and can be mashed easily. Uncover and continue cooking until liquid has evaporated. Cool and store chilled in an air-tight  container.

More snacks

Banana Pecan Biscotti

Sweet and Spicy Fish Nibbles with Peanuts

Mustard and Cream Cheese Bread Sticks

Marmite Oatmeal Cheese Biscuits