Gluten-free banana bread

Continuing the back-to-basics theme, one of the things that I am continually baking is gluten-free banana bread. This started before the pandemic, and yes, I definitely did bake this during lockdown. I have always used this recipe; it might not be sweet enough for some people as the only added sugar comes from a little maple syrup, which I often do not even add since I find the bananas are sweet enough. This recipe is from Hemsley and Hemsley and I did actually eat the real thing at their café at Selfridges before it sadly closed. I have taken to adding things to the recipe, and my only guideline is to add half a cup of whatever you feel like – here I added blueberries.  You could also top this with nuts and seeds, I have done flaked almonds before which worked very well.

Ingredients
4 large ripe bananas
60g coconut flour
1 tbs cinnamon
1 pinch salt
4 medium eggs
50g/3 tbs coconut oil, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbs apple cider vinegar
½ tbs maple syrup for the batter plus ½ tbs for the top
Additional: ½ cup blueberries

Directions
Peel the bananas. Weigh out 350g and mash until smooth. Reserve the leftover banana to decorate the top of the bread (this is about 4 large bananas; little ones will not cut it here).
Preheat oven to fan 180ºC and line a loaf tin (12cmx23cm) with baking parchment (my oven is not fan assisted so I went down to 160ºC).

Whisk the dry ingredients together, and then stir in the eggs, mashed banana and the rest of the wet ingredients using only ½ tbs maple syrup and mix until smooth.
Alternatively, blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth (beware slight chemical reaction when apple cider vinegar meets bicarb, no need to panic!).

Pour the batter into the lined loaf tin. Decorate the top with slices of reserved banana and drizzle with the remaining ½ tablespoon of maple syrup.
Bake at 180ºC for 50 mins – 60 min or until a knife comes out clean.
Cool on a rack completely before turning out of the tin.
Eat.

Mixing this in the food processor does create a very smooth batter and quite a firm bread, mixing by hand obviously creates more texture. I did not have a food processor or blender for this version, and you can see if you compare to the photo from Hemsley and Hemsley (see below) the texture difference.

I like to cut a slice while it is still warm out of the oven, maybe eaten with a little bit of salted butter!  

I found the original recipe quite a while ago here http://hemsleyandhemsley.com but it no longer seems to be anywhere on the website or the links, but I would think it is in one of the Hemsley cookbooks if you want to find it.

And here is the slice of banana bread at Hemsley & Hemsley.