This delicious variation on banana bread is wholemeal, full of walnuts and not too sweet. The recipe (published in Gourmet Traveller) is by Dan Lepard.
Preheat your oven to 180ºC (350ºF) and line a loaf tin with baking paper. Mash 4 bananas with 200g (7 oz) of dark muscovado sugar or unrefined molasses sugar until smooth then stir in the juice of ½ a lemon. Add 1 tablespoon of honey, 75g (2⅔ oz) of tahini and 125g (4¼ oz) of softened butter and beat well until all the butter is incorporated. Add 1 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ground allspice, ground sumac (if you don’t have this you can substitute grated lemon rind) and 2 eggs and beat well. Stir in 200g (7 oz) of walnut halves. Add 250g (8¾ oz) of wholemeal flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder and mix well. Spoon into the prepared loaf pan and sprinkle with some unrefined sugar and sesame seeds. Bake for 70 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin and (if you can wait) slice the next day.
michelle picker cooks 