Banana sourdough – a healthier vegan alternative to the traditional banana bread
By Unknown - November 11, 2014
I think this family has a banana addiction. For newbies here, I live with my Uncle and Aunt for my studies. We buy bananas all the time. One of my cousins is totally in love with them and the two others share the addiction too. And my Aunt… If it weren’t for her diet (she follows the chrono nutrition rules), she would be eating bananas everyday as well. On weekends however, no one is on a diet. Weekends are cheat days and everyone eats whatever they fancy eating. It’s also on weekends that I bake.
A few weeks ago, we had extra overripe bananas. No one would eat them and I didn’t want to throw them away. So I decided to bake. But not anything, I wanted banana bread. I wanted to bake something that would feel comforting but since I have troubles eating unhealthy foods, I wanted my banana bread to be healthy. I had some sourdough in my fridge. Then I knew exactly what I would be baking. A banana sourdough bread.
This sourdough bread is really sweet, with a nice banana taste, of course, but also well balanced because it has very few sugar. It was gone within the weekend here. I just had the time to shoot it and eaten it was!
Makes one big loaf.
Sourdough starter:
- 5 g desiccated yeast or 25 g fresh yeast
- 100 g flour
- 100 mL water
Tip: you can make more sourdough and keep it in your fridge for up to a month even though I heard of people keeping it up to a year.
Banana sourdough:
- 400 g flour
- 200 g sourdough starter
- 3 large overripe bananas (or about 350g)
- 1 TbS agave syrup (or any other syrup)
- 1 TbS coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
- 1 TbS Rum (optional)
- 50 g desiccated coconut flakes
- 50 mL plant or nut milk (you can use regular milk if you don’t bake any vegan sourdough)
- 1 vanilla pod
- The juice of one lemon
Steps:
- Prepare the sourdough: combine all ingredients in a bowl and whip until dough is homogeneous. Transfer to a glass jar and let rest in the fridge for 12-24 hours (though I highly recommend waiting for 24 hours before using the sourdough).
- Prepare the sourdough bread: press the lemon juice in a bowl. Add rum, sugar, syrup and vanilla (halve the pod and scrape the vanilla grains with a knife). Give it a stir. Use a fork to puree the banana into that same mixing bowl. The liquid it contains will help a lot.
- In another bowl, pour sourdough starter. Add 200 g flour and mix. Add banana puree, desiccated coconut and plant milk. Stir well.
- Add remaining flour and stir again. At this point, your dough must be quite sticky but not too liquid. If you find it too liquid, just add more flour until you get the consistency of sticky bread dough.
- Cover and let dough rest for one hour or more.
- Add a bit more flour to dough, mix it and use your fingers to transfer it to loaf pan. I used a Silicone Loaf Pan so I didn’t have to grease it. If you use a regular baking tin, grease it or cover it with parchment paper.
- Let dough rest for 30 more minutes.
- Preheat the oven at 390°F (200°C). When ready, dust banana bread top with flour and bake it for 20 minutes (it has to be brown and well swollen) and leave it in the oven for 20 more minutes.
- Transfer sourdough on a grill until completely cooled. This sourdough bread can be frozen or eaten right away. It keeps up to 4 days, wrapped in a tea towel.
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