We all love banana bread, (well almost all) and everyone has their own claim to fame recipe. When Tim, the CEO of Maskal Teff and I began talking about pastries made with teff, he was keen on a family banana bread  with walnuts that his wife makes at home, so that got me inspired to fulfill his foodie dreams.
So I became obsessed with creating a gluten free ancient grain banana bread and started baking batch after batch to create a recipe that highlighted the power horse benefits of Teff. The goal was to develop a cake with a high inclusion of Teff that resulted in a moist cake without using complicated flours (no starches, no high glycemic flours, no gums either). I am a practical baker and I have always believed that the best recipe is the one you immediately want to bake and even sell.

The best part of this recipe is that you can get all the ingredients in the supermarket and make a cake that really stands out as a timeless banana bread.

I started to explore more of how teff flours worked in baking (in a high inclusion), and since I had already baked some previous recipes with teff (granola, brownies, vanilla cake),  I knew through trial and error that this was not an easy task. Texture is such an important part in baking and even more so in healthy baking. There are 2 types of teff grains: ivory and brown: I personally love the Ivory flour most as it is easier to combine.   So here is the secret tip of this recipe: (bring out your notebook!) I saw a banana bread recipe shared by Elissa Goodman where she combined equal parts of quinoa flour with almond flour and I thought just by reading the recipe what a brilliant idea! So I went and bought quinoa flour (I honestly could not remember the taste and texture of baking with it).  I have been using sooo many ingredients  lately.  I made the recipe as is and did not like the taste of quinoa flour: it tasted like a moldy closet… but the recipe was a good start and I did love the idea behind it so I intuitively remembered my go to squash recipe (my version of Gjelina’s) and I recalled that a student made it with banana so I started playing with the flours and sweeteners like I do in my test kitchen. So here is the gold mine: don’t use teff 100 %  it’s not a flour that can be used 1:1 meaning you can’t substitute 100 % of your regular flour with teff: it just doesn’t bake that well an tends to be grainy and dry your baked goods when you don’t balance it out with moist ingredients and I discovered through reading recipes online and comparing teff to quinoa (they bake similarly) that if you use half teff and half almond flour it works amazingly well, the texture is very smooth and it binds so well teff needs moisture and almond flour is the binding agent here. So the PRO tip here is substitute the flour in your recipes using ½ teff flour and ½ almond flour. No need to add gums or fillers!
This cake only gets better with time!

For those of you who are new to Teff (move over quinoa!) Teff is the new quinoa: it is the smallest grain in the world and it’s a perfect vegan protein. Teff adds a very interesting nuttyness to your recipes and it’s very versatile, once you start using it you will start opening your creative mind and discovering inventive ways to incorporate it into your life.  When I have breakfast I look for great sources of fiber, protein, manganese, iron and calcium and teff is a nutritious power horse.  

This is a sponsored recipe and all opinions are mine.

Don’t you just love this Vintage Nordic Ware Celtic Knot pan?

I owned one years ago, I sold it to pay for pastry school and really missed it! I had a hunch to post a photo to see if any of my neighbors had one they didn’t want and since I have been on an “ask and you shall receive” quest I did and my dear neighbor Mary responded and we swapped her cake pan for my signature trail mix cookies! A win/ win! So here is the banana bread with my favorite superfood spreads from Sarais Spreads: maca almond butter, and the chocolate date spread from The Date Lady.