Sundried ambassador Anne Iarchy is a personal trainer and nutritionist. She shares with us her deliciously healthy sugar-free banana loaf recipe.

Truly sugar-free banana cake

A few weeks ago, I was working at the Woburn Tri for Life, and at the end of a very successful day, we had masses of bananas left. After eating a banana a day for a few days, the rest of the bananas I took home were a little too ripe to my taste (I do like them just yellow from green), so I decided to bake a banana loaf.

I have two recipes, one with sugar and butter, one with coconut oil and dates, but I really wanted one with no sugar at all. After all, ripe bananas are very sweet. I did some research on the internet, and I was really surprised to see how many recipes came up “pretending” they were sugar-free, but just swapping the sugar to honey, maple syrup, or agave syrup and other sweeteners.

Although honey is healthier than sugar (and that depends on the amount of processing of the honey), it has the same effect on blood sugar levels and insulin release than sugar.

Here is my truly sugar-free banana loaf recipe which still tastes amazing and is much healthier than any other you will find.

Ingredients:

• 6-7 overripe bananas, previously frozen and defrosted
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups of gluten-free self raising flour (this is what I used but regular self-raising flour will work fine too)
• 2/3 cup of walnut pieces

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 190C (Gas Mark 5)
2. Lightly grease an 8x4" cake tin
3. In a bowl, mash the bananas, then whisk in the eggs, vanilla and coconut oil, until properly mixed.
4. Slowly add the flour bit by bit and stir well with a spoon.
5. Stir in the walnuts.
6. Pour your mixture into the tin, then decorate with some walnuts if you want to.
7. Put in the oven to bake for approx 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

• Cool before slicing.
• The cake came out moist and it was definitely sweet enough.
• A slice of the cake makes a lovely healthy snack.
• It keeps well for 4-5 days covered in foil.