Banana Bread

Recipe by: Darina Allen, Rosemary Kearney | from Healthy Gluten-Free Cooking: 150 Recipes for Food Lovers

Cookstr

Course: Side Dish, Snack

Total Time: Under 4 Hours

Skill Level: Moderate

Cost: Inexpensive

Photo by: Joseph De Leo

Soft, speckled bananas are best for this recipe. The mixture also makes adorable little mini-muffins if you cook them in individual cases - great for children’s lunch boxes. Big kids like them too!

Yield: Makes 1 2lb loaf

INGREDIENTS

¼ cup (1½ oz) cherries
½ cup (3oz) golden raisins
1 stick (4oz) butter, softened
½ cup (4oz) superfine sugar
2 large eggs, preferably free range
3 large ripe bananas
1¼ cups (6oz) fine rice flour
5 tablespoons (2oz) cornstarch
2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Equipment:

2lb loaf pan, lined with parchment paper, or 24 small paper muffing cases

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Wash and dry the cherries. Cut into quarters and mix with the golden raisins. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale, light, and soft. Add the eggs, one by one, and beat well between each addition.

Mash the bananas and add to the creamed mixture. Sift the rice flour, cornstarch, gluten-free baking powder, and salt together and fold carefully into the banana mixture. Very gently, stir in the cherries and golden raisins, so that they are evenly distributed through the mixture.

Pour the mixture into the loaf pan or into 24 small muffin cases and bake in the oven for about 1¼-1½ hours for the loaf, 25 minutes for the mini-muffins, until golden on top and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

Remove the loaf from the tin and cool on a wire rack; cool mini-muffins on a rack in their paper cases. Slice the loaf into 8 slices to serve.