Baking #106: Cranberry & Chia Seed Banana Bread

As mentioned in my previous blog entry, I baked again yesterday evening after coming home from dinner and grocery shopping! Felt the urge to bake as I love exploring new recipes with new ingredient – chia seed.

While I was walking down the aisle of superfoods section at Supa Save in Mata-Mata, I found that they have chia seed and it is cheaper than the one I bought from the organic shop at Setia Kenangan 2. Anyways, it doesn’t matter as I will just stock up my chia seed from Supa Save next time when the current one is running low on supply.

Anyways, my Cranberry & Chia Seed Banana Bread was done baking by 11PM yesterday evening and I left it to cool completely until this morning before dislodging it. It took me quite some time and effort to dislodge the cake from the baking loaf pan despite that I had greased the tin beforehand. Guess that my baking loaf pan ain’t that non-stick afterall.

Cranberry & Chia Seed Banana Bread (adapted from The Domestic Goddess Wannabe)

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs
• 4 large bananas, mashed *3 large Dole Philippines bananas*
• 125g unsalted butter, melted
• 175g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 150g fine granulated white sugar *120g*
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 80-100g dried cranberries *80g*
• 1 tbsp chia seed
• extra dried cranberries as topping *optional*

Directions:

1. In a clean mixing bowl, mix dry ingredients – plain flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.
2. In another clean mixing bowl, stir both melted butter and sugar together.
3. Once the butter and sugar had been mixed, add in eggs one at a time. You have to work fast or else the egg will cook in the heat of the melted butter.
4. Add in mashed bananas and vanilla extract, mix well.
5. Add in dried cranberries and chia seed, mix well.
6. Sift in flour mixture and gently fold in the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Stop immediately when both mixture are well incorporated as you do not want to over mix the batter.
7. Pour batter into a lightly greased 9×5-inches loaf pan and scatter some dried cranberries on top of the batter.
8. Bake in a preheated oven of 170 degree Celsius for 45 to 55 minutes or until an inserted cake tester comes out clean.
9. Allow the banana bread to cool completely in the pan.

Not too bad, right? LOL!

As mentioned earlier on, it took me quite some time and effort to dislodge the cake from the loaf pan. So, it is best that you line the loaf pan beforehand so that removal will be a lot easier. The texture of the cake is soft and moist, bursting with bananas flavor! The bread was however slightly too sweet for my liking and I am gonna reduce the sugar next time. The addition of chia seed makes the bread sound healthy, don’t you think so?

I had realized that most of the dried cranberries sunk to the bottom of the bread. So, do flour the dried cranberries before mixing them into the batter to prevent them from sinking. And Do try out this recipe if you have extra bananas sitting on your kitchen worktop. It is definitely worth it.