Moist Banana Chestnut Loaf
A rustic Corsican-inspired banana bread recipe using chestnut flour- ideal for teatime or breakfast.
A rustic Corsican-inspired banana bread recipe using chestnut flour- ideal for teatime or breakfast.
That’s the first full-on week back at school conquered. Hearing the groans to early clockwork mornings is waning so I guess that means we’re gradually adjusting to routine. I put it down to bananas and this Banana Chestnut Coffee Cake.
Brought up calling bananas “brain food”, I stocked up on them last weekend for a quick, healthy energy boost to slice on our favourite breakfast maple granola. Except Julie refused the bananas. Lucie explained that Julie loves this banana cake so much for breakfast that she deliberately leaves them to ripen so there’s an urgent excuse to make this!
I discovered this recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Nigellissima and loved her ingenious addition of coffee powder to banana bread, to give it an Italian touch. I don’t normally have sweet cake for breakfast but in Corsica, my mother-in-law often makes a chestnut cake using chestnut flour. As farine de chataigne is a pretty strong-flavoured flour, we normally mix it with plain flour. If you can’t find chestnut flour, use buckwheat flour – we love the flavours of this too.
So this recipe has gradually adapted to our tastes. I also gradually reduced the sugar – until it was over half the original quantity! – to accommodate the rustic chestnut flavour and give it our Corsican touch.
Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Italian Breakfast Banana Bread, from Nigellissima. I have more than halved the sugar content (replaced caster sugar with brown cane sugar), used chestnut flour, plus reduced the oil to compensate for these ingredients. To make this gluten-free, then omit the plain flour and use 170g chestnut flour. To make muffins, pour the mixture into a greased 1×12 muffin tin (or silicone brochette moulds, so no greasing necessary) and bake for 20 minutes at 200°C (gas mark 6).
3 medium bananas, very ripe
100ml /3.5 fl oz neutral-tasting oil (grape seed/sunflower) oil
pinch salt
2 medium eggs
50g / 2oz brown cane sugar
100g / 3.5oz plain flour
75g / 3oz chestnut flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
25g / 1oz chopped walnuts (optional)
4 tsps instant espresso powder
1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan/340°F (gas mark 3). Lightly oil a 450g/1LB loaf tin or no need to oil if using a silicone loaf mould.
2. Mash the bananas to a purée, add the salt and beat in the oil. Beat in the eggs, one by one, followed by the soft brown sugar.
3. Sift the chestnut flour and gradually beat it into the mixture, adding the plain flour, bicarbonate of soda, coffee powder and walnuts (if using).
4. Pour the batter into the loaf tin, place on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes, or until slightly coming away at the sides and bunglingly risen. A cake tester should come out clean.
5. Leave the cake in the tin for about 20 minutes, then turn out on to a wire tray to cool.
Leave the cake or muffins overnight as they’ll taste even better in the morning.
Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days. The muffins/cake also freeze well for up to 3 months; just defrost the night before.
Adapted from Nigella Lawson's Nigellissima, as I loved her ingenious Italian addition of coffee powder to banana bread. However, I've reduced the sugar by well over half the original recipe's quantity, adding chestnut flour to add that rustic Corsican touch! If you can't find chestnut flour, use buckwheat for a delicious alternative.
For a gluten-free banana bread, then omit the plain flour and use 170g chestnut flour. To make muffins, pour the mixture into a greased 1x12 muffin tin (or silicone brochette moulds, so no greasing necessary) and bake for 20 minutes at 200°C (gas mark 6).
Leave the cake or muffins overnight as they'll taste even better in the morning. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days. The muffins/cake also freeze well for up to 3 months; just defrost the night before.
Jill Colonna
To help personalise content, enhance and provide you with a safer experience, we use cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
OK, I agreeLearn moreWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visist to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
Privacy Policy