Jaggery Banana Loaf

A vegan lunch date was planned and how could I not bring dessert. Knowing that it is hard to get vegan desserts in restaurants, unless you request the chef to put in some extra effort, I was pretty sure I wanted to bring something along for the meet.

It had to be something "healthy" since we were meeting at Yoga House, a macrobiotic restaurant for lunch. That took care of the sugar and thank dog for that. With all the cavities I am accumulating, my on-again off-again relationship with sugar needs to be permanently off. And so this spiced jaggery loaf was rehashed and brought back to life. I bake a whole bunch of sugar free stuff for The Green Stove for other people, but I thought I should extend it to my vegan peeps also.

Also in other news, Vegan MoFo is happening in October again. 500 plus vegan bloggers from all over the world are going to be spamming each other with vegan food porn and recipes. I have a theme this year and hopefully I will be able to stick to the theme. It is going to be an EPIC month of vegan food. Can't wait!

This is a simple, dense and flavourful loaf. The nuts and berries add a nice crunch. It's very quick to mix up and if you have organic ingredients on hand it's even better.

Here is the recipe

Makes two 6 inch loaves

Dry Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1 tsp all spice powder (optional)

2 tbsp cranberries chopped

2 tbsp raisins chopped

a handful of walnuts chopped

a pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients

1 1/2 cups jaggery powder

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup oil

3 medium bananas chopped

1 tsp vinegar

Dark Chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 175°C

Mix all the dry ingredients including the berries and nuts. Melt the jaggery with a little water and add the rest of the wet ingredients to it. Fold it in well and add more water if required. Taste the batter and if you like it to be sweeter, then add more jaggery. It should be a thick cake batter. Put it into two lined / oiled 6 inch loaf tins.

You could put the dark chocolate chips on top after putting the batter into the loaf tins, but that could constitute as cheating. I put it for added visual effect, nothing else. This loaf will be absolutely perfect without it too.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. The toothpick test works to see if it is done. Remove it from the loaf tin and let it cool a bit before cutting.

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Right Side Up Banana Cake with pour over Coffee Caramel

It's Vegan Mofo Iron Chef Challenge #2 and Isa decided to spice things up by giving us two ingredients - Banana and Coffee. One I love, the other, well... 

I eat bananas everyday - in breakfast smoothies, as an evening snack, for dessert. Recently I even made gluten free pancakes using dried banana flour. 

So it's safe to say that I could survive on bananas if it ever came to that.

Coffee, well it ends there for me. Coming from a South Indian family, coffee is a very integral part of the day and it's freshly brewed (filter coffee) every single day in all kitchens. Tamillians cannot breathe without their coffee. They start the day (6am) with a hot cup of strong coffee, have one more by 11pm may be, another at 4pm and if they really are insane, then another one after dinner. My mom never allowed us to drink coffee (and tea). It just wasn't offered to us. Her father (a doctor and a coffee addict) used to warn everyone about the dangers of coffee while drinking his daily cup of coffee. And it was well known then that children don't need the caffeine high. [I don't know how that perception has changed now and how it is okay to 'caffeinate' your child every day (a la Gatorade, Coca Cola, Tea, Coffee, the works)]

So it's safe to say that I don't like coffee.

This challenge was tricky for me. Since I was already up to my neck in cakes today, I decided I would try to make something sweet out of it. Yeah I read the challenge, brownie points for savoury stuff, I had a brainwave and I had to do it. I had 4 friends coming over, so I had an audience for feedback which was nice. Feedback I got, it's all gone!

This is a dense cake that's best served warm, but it makes a nice cold dessert too. I prefer using whole wheat flour because it makes the cake dense and fulfilling. I added chocolate because, well who doesn't love chocolate? And the pour over Coffee Caramel added some gooey quotient to it. I suggest pouring the caramel just before serving, since the flavour of coffee tends to disappear quickly. 

Right Side Up Banana Cake with pour over Coffee Caramel 

For the Caramel:

I had a previous batch of caramel sauce I'd made from this recipe. It makes the most delicious caramel sauce ever.

I brewed some coffee and mixed one part coffee to two parts caramel. This was a mild mix, good enough for me. If you like coffee, then you could use equal quantities of both.

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 175C

1 Big Ripe Banana

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 a lime

1 tablespoon water

Cut the bananas into 1/2 inch thick slices.

In a saucepan, melt the sugar and water. Once it's melted, add in the lime juice. Pour it into the baking pan and spread. Arrange the banana slices to cover the entire bottom of the pan in an overlapping fashion.

Prepare the cake mix:

1 and a 1/2 cups of Whole Wheat Flour

3/4 cup sugar or any sweetener

1/4 cup chunks of vegan chocolate

1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder

1/2 tsp All Spice

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Corn starch

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup Soy Milk/ Water or any non dairy milk

1/4 cup oil

1 tsp vinegar

Combine wet and dry ingredients separately. Mix and fold the batter lightly. Add into the pan with the bananas and spread evenly.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Loosen the edges of the cake and invert it onto a grill. 

Slice, pour the Coffee Caramel on the cake and serve!

Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmmm!

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