‘God’s own country, or a heaven on earth. Place full of mountains, greenery, and streams. Oh Kerala, God created you with utmost care’.
I first read about this type of banana cake in, ‘The covenant of water’ a beautiful book based in Kerala in the early 1900’s. Part of the learnings of the 12-year-old bride is the recipes of the household using the surrounding foraged fruit and vegetables, which includes a lot of coconut and poovan bananas. I looked up this poovan tahini cake as it was called and soon found out about the plethora of varieties of bananas, some of which are tart. Who would have known?!
The original recipe includes yogurt or curd, which has dairy and wheat flour, which I substituted with almond flour. I didn’t add any diary as the type of bananas I used where larger and had more moisture. It was also made in a bread tin and baked for 50 minutes. I made muffins, so lesser time for baking was needed.
I like the addition of tahini to banana bread as it adds some nice nutrition in for the little one. Sesame seeds of which tahini is made, have lignans and phytosterols which enhance the immune response and are said to decrease the risk of certain cancers. The sesamin and sesmolin in sesame seeds are known for their antioxidant and antibacterial properties.
Ingredients
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed.
- 3 tbsp. maple syrup
- 1/3 cup tahini
- 2 cups almond flour (188g)
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 large eggs, beaten.
- 1.5 tsp. vanilla extract
- Sesame seeds, pecans for topping (optional)
Method
- Preheat your oven to 350F.
- Grease muffin tin/silicone with coconut oil
- Combine the mashed bananas and maple syrup until one continuous mixture.
- Add the remaining ingredients in and mix till well combined.
- Pour the batter into the muffin tin and sprinkle with toppings if using them.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
