Recipe: Walnut-Cranberry Banana Loaf

When I was away at university, my mom made this delicious walnut and cranberry banana loaf and sent it to me. It was so delicious! I'm not the biggest fan of banana bread because a lot of times I find that the banana flavor is too strong but this was banana bread with a twist. It had walnuts and dried cranberries in it. The walnuts added a nice little crunch and the dried cranberries gave it an extra tang. So this time when I came home and my mom asked what I wanted to eat, naturally I suggested we make the banana bread again. And I've decided to share it with you all because it just needs to be shared!

One thing I love about this recipe is that it doesn't require eggs. It's not completely vegan (we do use milk) but you can definitely experiment and try using soy milk or almond milk. Our household doesn't really stray from using regular milk but we did find that for those of you who don't eat eggs (like us), milk and the ground up flax seeds happen to be great substitutes!

Doesn't it just look absolutely delicious? Let's just get into it, shall we? This is what you'll need:

Ingredients- 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 small bananas or 2 large bananas (Note: make sure they're thoroughly blackened; you don't want ripe bananas!)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup oil
-1/2 cup milk
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp ground flax seeds
- Any nuts you like (e.g. walnuts, pecans, etc.)
- Handful of dried cranberries

Step 1: Assemble your ingredients! Take this time to set your oven to preheat to 375 degrees as well.

Step 2: Mix all the dry ingredients together: flour, salt, ground flax seeds, baking powder, your nuts of choice, and dried cranberries. Don't add the sugar now though! It will be added later.

Step 3: Mash those bananas until they look like the picture below. Come on, work those muscles and mash those bananas!

Step 4: Add the vanilla extract and sugar. Mix it a bit and then add the oil. Mix it again. Add the milk.

Step 5: After all that mixing and adding, your mixture should look like this!

Step 6: Add in the dry ingredients in and mix them in well. PUT THOSE MUSCLES TO WORK!

Step 7: Grease your loaf baking pan and then pour the mixture in. Feel free to add some extra walnuts in top for an added crunch! Pop it into the oven for 35-45 minutes. I set the timer for 35 minutes and then just checked up on it. For us, it took around 40 minutes.

This is what the finished product will look like. Doesn't it just look scrumptious?

Step 8: Cut up, admire your work and then DIG IN!

Try this recipe yourselves and tell me what you think! Did you like it as much as I did?

Cheers!