Banana Bread with Stevia

I bought Stevia last year in Tesco and it has sat in the press since, mocking me. With all this talk of evil sugar I decided to try and use it to make cake, instead of sugar. I found this page of recipes and adapted the b-bread slightly, while sticking to the American use of cups as measurements.

A loaf-tin sized cake yield 12 slices. So, for this, calories per slice are 114, sugars only 3g and a nice dollop of protein at 3g also.

The wet ingredients all together, before mixing

I have to say that this experiment does not make me trust Stevia. The Banana Bread is nice and banana-y but not sweet at all and really tastes more bread-like than cake-like, which is not what I wanted. I ended up putting jam on it to sweeten it up, which rather defeats the low-sugar purpose of it all. Sigh. Use more Stevia in the recipe or stick to sugar? The quest continues...

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup ripe banana, mashed (2 fun-sized bananas)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 medium eggs

1/3 cup milk

1 1/2 cups whole wheat spelt flour

1 teaspoon bread soda

1 1/2 teaspoons stevia powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C) and grease and/or line a loaf tin.
• In a large bowl, mix together the oil, bananas, vanilla, eggs, and milk.
• Sieve the the dry ingredients through and mix until just combined.
• Pour into the tin and bake for 55 minutes, or until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.
• Cool in the tin for a few minutes to set, then remove and cool completely on a rack.

APPLE SAUCE

I have been baking, just not blogging it - too many other things on, like a deadline for my latest novel.

One of my favourite chocolate cake recipes calls for apple sauce. I intend to make the cake on Thursday for my birthday so today I used some turning apples to make the sauce, rather than buy it. I only need half a cup so there's little point buying a jar to chuck it anon.

This makes a sweet sauce as the apples are sweet to start with.

Ingredients

• 2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped small (I used golden delicious)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 60ml water (enough to cover the bottom of the pot)

Method

• Place all ingredients in a pot and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cover with lid.
• Simmer apples for about 8 minutes or until soft  The smaller the pieces, the faster they soften. Stir at halfway mark to avoid sticking.
• Remove from heat and mash or whizz in a blender for a puréed sauce.