I like baking. I have been baking for as long as I could climb up onto the blue kitchen stool and “supervise” my mother. I don’t know why then I was so nervous when baking this Banana and Walnut Bread. I suppose I was succumbing to engrained feelings that vegan must be tasteless. Ridiculous given how much vegan food I have eaten and not had that experience. But nervous I was.

I mixed together each stage. When I tasted the mix, it tasted exactly as it should do. I was surprised. When it began to rise in the oven, I was also surprised. And when it was baked, it tasted lovely. Another surprise. I really did fear the worst because years of conditioning said it couldn’t be so. My supremely-better-at-baking pal, Robert, assured me that all a cake needs to succeed is ‘fluids, fat and glue’ – all of which were in this mix. The fact it was tasty therefore shouldn’t have come as such a surprise!

Ingredients
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and grated finely
3-4 very ripe bananas
6 tablespoons, Rapeseed Oil
3½ ounces, castor sugar
7 ounces, self-raising flour
2 teaspoons, baking powder
3 teaspoons, ground cinnamon
4 ounces walnuts, broken into small pieces
Pinch of salt
Sunflower oil

Method
1. Heat the oven to 180 C degrees
2. Line a loaf tin with baking parchment and brush with sunflower oil
3. Sieve the flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon and salt together
4. Mash the bananas
5. Add the sugar and oil to the bananas and combine well
6. Add the dry ingredients in three stages, combining well each time
7. Add the walnuts and grated apple
8. Turn the mix into a loaf tin and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes
9. Cover in tinfoil and bake for a further 35-40 minutes
10. Turn onto a wire rack to cool

*There is a non-vegan version in the ‘Baking’ section