Esha’s Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

I used to be quite chuffed about my healthy habits until I met Esha Mahajan. She’s the only person I know who is naturally, effortlessly healthy. While you were throwing temper tantrums over an ice cream cone, Esha hated sugar as a child. I started yoga at the age of 30, but she does yoga, Pilates, weights, cardio, and eats vegetarian food in her 20s, despite belonging to a family of hardcore meat eaters. But that’s not to say she doesn’t enjoy good food. Her lunch box – packed with greens, lentils, pickled turmeric roots – is the most coveted in the Harper’s Bazaar team. So while this recipe is healthy, it’s also the creamiest, softest banana bread I’ve ever tasted.

Words by Esha:

Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

Ingredients
¾ cup buckwheat flour
¾ cup oat flour (or finely ground oatmeal)
Note: Instead, you can also use 1 cup flour, and substitute the remaining ½ cup with almond butter
½ cup ground almonds
2 eggs (you can also use flax eggs, which add a nutty taste to the bread, but I’m not personally a fan of the flavour)
Flax (or chia) egg: 1 tbsp ground flax (or chia) seed with 3 tbsp water, stirred well and left to rest for about 15 minutes
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp coconut oil
½ cup almond milk (or any other—dairy, soy, hemp, coconut etc)
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp raw cacao
1 tbsp cinnamon
¼ cup dessicated coconut
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
6 ripe bananas

Method
Preheat oven
Add apple cider vinegar to milk and set aside to form a buttermilk like liquid
Mash bananas with a fork and set aside
Sift flours, baking powder, and baking soda into a bowl. Add bananas, beaten eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk to the dry ingredients. If you’re using nut butter, now is the time to add it. Stir, and add the coconut
Divide the batter into two bowls—add cacao to one, and cinnamon to the other, and 1 tbsp maple syrup in each
Pour both batched into a greased loaf to create a marble effect and bake for 30-40 minutes.