{Just Bananas} | Sprouted Sourdough Sweet Bread

Nothing but bananas here, with a pleasant, more subtle sweetness! Serve with just a little cultured crèam fraîche for breakfast or tea. For a proper dessert, serve warm à la mode with 1-2 dollops of real vanilla bean ice cream.

The dominant flavor of this bread is sweet. So ask, when is the best time to include this in your diet? To balance this food in your diet, make sure to include a healthy serving of non-starchy vegetables with your other meals.

If you make this part of breakfast, try adding some spiced plain greek yogurt on the side to bump up the protein. A one inch slice has about 5g of protein; add a 1/4 cup greek yogurt and that’s another 5-6 grams; mix in 1 Tbs of chia and there you have 2g more; an egg provides about 6g more. So, you can easily build 12g-17g of breakfast protein. Or, enjoy at the end of the day after a light meal focusing on greens and the bitter flavor.

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{Yeild} | 10 one-inch slices

Ingredients

• 1 cup sourdough starter {made mine with a 100% rye sourdough starter I propagated}

• 1 cup sprouted spelt flour

• 2 Tablespoons coconut oil or ghee, melted but not hot (slightly warm is okay)

• 2 eggs

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1 teaspoon unrefined sea salt

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 1/4 cup very ripe banana, mashed (4 medium/largish) {OR 1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree}

• ½ cup walnuts, chopped

• 2 Tablespoons dry chia seeds, for an omega 3 boost and a little crunch

Instructions

1. 8 HOURS BEFORE you want to bake the bread: In a large mixing bowl, combine the sourdough starter and spelt flour to form a slightly sticky, soft ball of dough. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel. Leave at room temperature for about 8 hours.

2. 8 HOURS LATER, when BAKING the bread: In a medium bowl whisk together the melted coconut oil (or ghee), eggs, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

3. Add this fat-spice mixture to the large mixing bowl of "soaking" sourdough. Fold in until thoroughly mixed.

4. Fold in the mashed banana (OR pumpkin puree) - followed by the baking soda/powder, walnuts, and chia seeds. Fold in until combined.

5. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan with coconut oil.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Set the filled loaf pan aside for 30 minutes.

7. Place pan in preheated oven and bake for 80 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. If the loaf top is getting too brown in the middle of baking, you may cover it loosely with aluminum foil. Allow the bread to cool for 15 minutes in pan. Remove and allow the bread to cool completely....or almost completely. (If not mostly cooled before slicing, the bread will smoosh apart......it is very moist.)

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