Flax Banana Bread

I am currently working on a new project—a series of small recipe books, each one focusing on a different category of recipes. For the first one, I am focusing on tea loaves and dessert breads—like date loaf and lemon bread. Other books in this series will feature recipes/categories like: soups, cookies, yeast breads, cakes & cupcakes, and so on.

This banana bread (submitted by Flora Maccarthy) does not only taste good but it also has extra nutrients which will benefit us. Flax seed is a good source of: Omega 3, 6 and 9, essential fatty acids and high in dietary fibre. You can bake this loaf in a large loaf pan or in four small pans. I added the buttermilk to moisten the batter.

1¾ cups/425 ml all-purpose flour

¾ cup/175 ml flaxseed, ground

¾ cup/175 ml sugar

1 tsp./5 ml baking powder

½ tsp./2 ml baking soda

½ tsp./2 ml salt

2 eggs

1/3 cup/75 ml vegetable oil

3/4 cup/175 ml buttermilk

1 cup/250 ml ripe banana, mashed

Topping:

½ cup/125 ml nuts, chopped

¼ cup/60 ml brown sugar

½ tsp./2 ml cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease loaf pans.

In a small bowl, combine flour, flaxseed, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a medium bowl, beat eggs, oil and buttermilk together. Add dry ingredients and mashed banana to egg mixture stirring just until combined. Do not over mix. Scoop the batter into prepared pans. Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle over batter. Pat down gently.

Bake for 55-60 minutes for large loaf pan and 35 minutes for four small ones. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans. These loaves freeze well. Enjoy!