Fresh figs & banana bread/ Anjoora banana cake/ Eggless fig banana bread

Hey there, homemade bread or home baked products are pure bliss to our health when compared to store bought ones!, agree? I am saying this because if you can manage to put little time & effort, it is not rocket science! It is quick to do when compared to other desserts at the same time we have complete control on the ingredients that we use. One can play around multiple ingredients of choice and also add goodness of fruits & vegetables that we like in their purest form. If it is store bought bakes, pure/ unadulterated ingredients are rare to find. Flavors are generally identical or artificial!

Now, coming to this post, I love baking & it feels therapeutic to bake something for family. I don’t bake fancy stuffs normally, they are simplest at the same turns reasonably good sometimes make wonders! I am saying this, as in few cases, my bakes turn satisfactory too. You get hold on any recipe & it becomes perfect after a couple of trials normally.  So make small portion always for the first time & increase the measure subsequently. Today I am sharing my latest hit at home fig & banana bread or cake you can call. I had plenty of home grown fresh figs (ficus auriculata), which we couldn’t finish by eating. I made halwa, smoothie, milkshake.. It makes a great combination with banana is what I learnt from my trials. Be it smoothie or halwa, fig with added bananas give that wonderful taste. So I made this bread by combining both fruits as I had good number of banana (Mysore variety) which we brought from my father’s farm during our recent trip!

Please check out the recipe.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Baking time: 35 minutes

Serves: 250 gms of bread

Ingredients:

Fresh figs puree – ¾ cup

Ripe Bananas puree – ¾ cup, + 1 banana to garnish (garnishing is optional)

All-purpose flour/ maida – 1¼ Cups

Fine Rava/ Small Semolina– ¼ Cup

Sugar – ¾ Cup, Adjust to taste

Coconut oil/ ghee/ butter – 3-4 tbsp/ about ¼ cup

Nutmeg powder – ¼ tsp

Cinnamon powder – 2 generous pinches

Baking soda – ½ teaspoon

Salt -1/4 teaspoon or a pinch

Chopped Nuts (cashews/ almonds) – 2 tbsp

Fresh curds or buttermilk – 2-3 tbsp (if needed)

Method:

• Figs puree: Choose fresh and juicy figs (I used elephant ear figs), peel off outer skin (this is not required in few varieties). Blend roughly chopped figs to get smooth puree.
• Making banana puree: Peel off and mash bananas well with your fingers.  Keep one banana peeled and sliced thin separately for garnishing.
• Mix both fruit pulps, add sugar and mix well to get a single mixture (puree) with the help of a flat spoon or with a blender. Few small banana chunks are fine to have.
• Add in maida flour, small semolina, salt, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon powder and fold well once.
• Add coconut oil/ ghee to the same and mix again.
• Mix until all the ingredients blend well to form smooth dough. If it looks too dry, then add curds/ buttermilk. Consistency should be thicker than regular cake batter, but should not be too dry! (It should be stickier & softer than roti dough).
• Add the chopped nuts and fold to spread evenly.
• Preheat the oven to 180 deg Celsius.
• Grease a loaf pan or rectangular cake pan. Pour the mixture to this pan. Spread sliced banana (kept for garnishing) on top of this batter and press gently (this is optional). Bake for 30-35 minutes or until inserted fork/ toothpick comes out clean. By then top of the bread becomes brown. It took 30 minutes in my oven.
• Once done, allow to cool down. Invert on a plain surface/ Plate/ wired rack. Slice and serve warm with tea/ milk.

Notes:

• You can increase figs puree by reducing banana puree. If using over ripe bananas, then the flavor of banana dominates over that of fig.
• Sugar measure can be reduced (1/2 cup or little lesser to this measure)if you don’t like very sweet bread. As banana ripens more, it releases more sweetness too. So keep that in mind too while baking.
• Garnishing with sliced fruit is optional, which makes the bread look prettier.
• Maida can be replaced by whole wheat flour for healthier bread. Texture changes to some extent.
• Do not open the oven before 20 minutes to check.
• If you are using a Pressure cooker to bake, bake without gasket & weight but with lid closed.
• Store left over bread refrigerated in an air tight container. Warm it before every serving.