I love to bake in winter, but one of the main reasons I restrain is because my husband who is now totally off granulated sugar gets left out whenever there is a piece of cake( not that he is a great fan of cake or banana breads!!) I do bake for kids though, but somewhere in the corner of my mind, it doesn’t feel balanced. There are many experiments that I run to see what I can do to make this better. Even though we use jaggery or raw sugar, it still calculated a sugar load for a diabetic. So, alternatives were absolutely needed. He is quite happy with Stevia and that began my experiments with Stevie based baking.
Baking with Stevia
Stevia is a low-calorie sweetener and much sweeter than sugar (nearly 200 times sweeter). It is of natural origin but we use the refined version as that is the only approved one by food authorities. In smaller quantities, it is a boon to satisfy a sweet tooth for dietary reasons. Saying this, it does give an after taste which is an acquired feeling. So give time for your taste buds to adapt to Stevia.
Once I started baking with Stevia I learnt quite a lot about the substitutions. here are some of my experimental learning.
- Learning that sugar to Stevia is not a direct substitution was lesson one.
- Secondly, a thicker dough makes the bake more dense and doughy than light and easy. So this is a balance you have to work within a big way. This balance to change a recipe is what I found hardest.
- When only one-third of the quantity of sugar is needed, that much bulk is needed to be added to the bake to make it up. this can be pureed banana, applesauce or egg whites. Hence this stevia banana bread.
- Stevia lacks the ability to lighten the bakes, hence it will not help you to soften the batter, so the batter really needs to be flowing.
- The lift from the batter with stevia is not as good as sugar, so account for smaller pans to give the bake the ability to rise.
- In this blueberry banana loaf, the blueberry helps to mask the aftertaste of the stevia as well.So try adding fresh berries into this recipe.
Vegan blueberry banana loaf with Stevia
Equipment
- mixing bowls and spoons.
- loaf tin
Ingredients
wet ingredients
- 1 tbsp flax seeds ( powder)
- 3 tbsp drinking water
- 4 medium Banana
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1/3 cup olive oil ( use a neutral oil )
- 2 tbsp stevia
dry ingredients
- 1 cup whole wheat flour ( fine ground, like atta)
- 1 cup oats ( I have used rolled,unstablized oats)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp baking powder
to thin out the batter
- 1/3 cup orange juice
Other ingredients
- 1/2 cup blueberries ( use fresh ones if you can)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Grease the loaf pan and keep it ready
- Mix the flax seed powder with water and allow it to swell
- Blend the bananas into a smooth paste.
- Into a mixing bowl add the bananas, the flax egg, oil, cinnamon and stevia and whisk them well together
- Add the rolled oats and sift in the baking powder, wholewheat flour and baking soda
- If the batter appears too thick, thin it with the orange juice as needed
- Mix in the blueberries and pour into the loaf tin
- Place in the oven and bake.
- Once the crust turns golden, insert a skewer and check it come out clean.
- If it does, the loaf is ready. Remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes before you unmould and slice.
- Enjoy the slice.
Have you tried baking with stevia?
Stevia bakes are initially slightly tricky. If you have a cake fail don’t forget you can always make a cake truffles with it and that gets it all eaten.
I hope this stevia banana bread comes in handy for you as well. If you have experimented with stevia I will love to try it too, please do share. Please do subscribe to this blog as we try to test out multiple recipes and ingredients each week and will love to share them with you. If you are still looking for wholewheat banana bread, try this recipe
Banana bread- with the whole wheat.
When you make this blueberry banana loaf recipe, tag us @mildlyindian or #mildlyindian with your social media handles. Stay with us as we experiment more with stevia. So far we have found success with Semiya payasam with stevia as well.
Stay safe and see you soon
I have tried baking with Stevia a few times for myself and haven’t been that convinced, but like you mentioned, when you want to be off sugar completely, it does a decent task. I have been off sugar mostly these days though sometime I get back to having it, but now my chai and coffee is with a little stevia and I prefer it much more than sugar now. That bake is just too good, bananas and blueberries always make a good cake…
It is quite hard to bake with stevia, but since my husband is off sugar we have been trying out recipes as well. A few of them worked but upon retrial failed. This was the first one that consistently came out good.
With banana and blueberry all that stevia taste is masked.
I have been looking for sugar free bakes just to reduce our sugar consumption overall. Glad that this bake consistently works so I am going to give it a go. Do you think it would work with frozen blueberries?
The recipe actually works and has been tested multiple times. Yes, the frozen berries do work, but they leech the colour a bit more than the fresh ones.
This vegan blueberry banana bread is delicious. I love that it’s made with healthy ingredients and refined sugar free but doesn’t compromise on taste or texture!
I am so glad you loved it. yes it is a good recipe.
This looks terrific – I love banana bread. I haven’t tried baking with stevia so I will have to try it.
It is tricky with stevia the first time so use recipes that are tried and tested like this banana bread.
I just love the combo of blueberry and banana. This sounds just delicious!
it is a lovely combination even if you are using regular sugar.
I have some stevia in my cupboard so will be giving this low sugar loaf cake a try soon.
Perfect. You will surely love it.