This bread is good.  It’s always a relief to break past that quiet but obnoxious barrier between “good, all things considering” and “good” outright.  It’s like the best qualities of the banana bread and zucchini bread we used to have, and you don’t really notice it has no sugar, no grains, no dairy.  If you want to be picky, it doesn’t even have bananas, but plantains are pretty close.  🙂

You want some very ripe plantains for this recipe — they should be fully yellow, with at least some black on the peel.  And you definitely, definitely want to use a blender (or immersion blender) to mash them up; plantains are starchier than bananas, and just taking a fork to them doesn’t work as well as with bananas.  But the results are worth it.  I came up with this recipe three days ago while my sister and I were trying things out with a bunch of overripe plantains, and since then we’ve made four loaves and eaten every slice.  The bread’s even good cold without needing to be warmed up — and that is super-rare in the gluten-free world.

Paleo “Banana Bread”

Yield:  1 loaf

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe-to-overripe plantains, pureed (about 1 1/2 cups of mash)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup cashew butter
• 1/2 tsp liquid stevia extract
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup tapioca starch, plus a little extra for “flouring”
• 1/8 tsp locust bean gum
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• coconut oil, for greasing

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Farenheit.  Lightly grease a loaf pan with coconut oil (I just get some on my (clean!) fingers and rub the sides and bottom of the pan with it), then lightly “flour” it with tapioca starch; set aside.

2.  Mash or puree the plantains; a blender is a really good idea here.  In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the plantain mash, eggs, cashew butter, vanilla, and stevia; set aside.

3.  In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the tapioca starch, locust bean gum, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.  Add the dry mixture to the plantain mixture and whisk together until fully combined.  The result should look pretty much exactly like banana bread batter.

4.  Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, and bake in the preheated oven for about 35 minutes.  It should pass the toothpick test when done.

5.  Once the loaf’s out of the oven, use a floppy spatula to gently loosen it from the sides of the pan and turn it out onto a cooling rack.  Let cool a few minutes at most, then tuck in while it’s still warm (though it keeps very well cool as well!).