Banana and honey moaves (muffin-loaves)

                                Banana and honey moaves

You know a cake recipe is a winner when Antonio is happy to eat it for breaky and I am happy to feed it to him! This recipe is a modified version of one I found on taste.com. I increased the honey, eliminated the granulated sugar, played around with the flours and baked it in mini loaf tins. I did this yesterday afternoon. They're all gone!

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 cup organic spelt flour
1 cup hazelnut meal
1 cup gluten free self raising flour
1/2 cup runny yoghurt
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp cinnamon powder
2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp clove powder

A note on the flours; you'll notice this isn't gluten free but it can easily be made gluten free. Just use another cup of self raising (I always use white wings). I think I can make it gaps friendly too. My plan is to use more hazelnut meal and a little coconut flour. And of course use more yoghurt instead of milk.

Method

Pre heat oven to 180

Melt butter and honey in a small saucepan on a low heat.

In a processor, blitz bananas, eggs, yoghurt and milk.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, hazelnut meal, spices, bicarbonate and baking powder.

Combine wet and dry ingredients, spoon into little loaf tins or muffin tray and bake for about 25 mins

I'm yet to experiment with it, but a great icing for these would be made of cream cheese blended with honey, then some whipped cream folded through.

  There's something wonderfully satisfying about baking something that tastes this good and yet contains no refined sugar. I love baking and I have a rampant sweet tooth! So to be able to continue to pursue my hobby and satisfy my sweet cravings without compromising my health is such a relief! I'm also really concious that kids birthday party fare is traditionally sugar laden. Now I'm sure I'll be able to bake great tasting food for Antonio's parties that I'm happy for him to eat. And that's a relief too!

which oil should I use? The healthy use of fats in food preparation

I love watching cooking shows on TV. I'm a fiend for food porn! I love watching the culinary artistry, being inspired by the food. I find it relaxing, and satisfying, in a bizzare way!


But there's one thing that annoys me, and it's not George's many and varied cliches on Masterchef! When a TV chef offers advice on cooking fats, my blood boils.


Some chefs happen also to be knowledgable in nutrition, like Dominique Rizzo, and I think she's fabulous. She offers great advice when she cooks on TV. During a recent Masterclass, however, in a segment on which oils to cook with, some advice was given which I strongly disagreed with, and which I'd like to take the time to correct.


The presenters essentially offered a few types of oils to use. They offered "good" olive oil, "ordinary" olive oil, grapeseed oil and sesame oil. There are so many more options than this!!


Olive oil:

To my mind there is only one kind, the "good" stuff. Extra virgin, cold pressed and organic. But I wouldn't put it in a hot pan, it would quickly become a bad fat and damaging to health. I drizzle it on a plate after serving food, or use it in salads.


Grapeseed:

The brand shown on the show was in a clear glass bottle. Any oil in clear glass or clear plastic is HYDROGENATED. This is an industrially processed oil, one step before margerine, which has been superheated and mixed with petrochemicals to give shelf life. All the beneficial properties that oil had have been destroyed and replaced by health wrecking properties. Pretend these don't exist.


Sesame oil:

This is a great oil for flash frying or stir frying, as are peanut, virgin coconut and virgin palm oils.


The fats I use most in the kitchen are butter, ghee and coconut oil. These are high in saturated fats and therefore have the advantage of being stable to temperature. This means that when you stick them in a hot pan they don't become poison. Bonus! I use ghee for Indian style cooking (obviously), coconut for Thai and Malay style food, and butter for European food. When I'm making Italian food I just drizzle olive oil over the plate after I've served it, as Matt Moran described, to give the flavor and the full benefits of the oil. Easy.


Using fats correctly, and libberally, is integral to good health. A high fat diet is a good diet, another fact TV chefs seem ignorant to. Fats are a food group essential to vitality. If we minimise fats such as nuts, avocado, egg yolks, fish, meats, butter and oils, we will have imbalanced hormones, blood sugar imbalance leading to weight gain, poor concentration, skin problems and even cholesterol problems.


I'm often asked about the cholesterol paradox. It's simple; it's just biochemically impossible for a high fat diet to cause high cholesterol. I'm not talking about damaged fats, by all means avoid those! The overwhelming evidence today shows that a diet high in refined foods is the culprit for all chronic illness, including cholesterol.


So if this information is news to you, restock your pantry with the good oils, ignore the bad and live healthily ever after! And never take nutrition advice from people without formal training!