Feijoa and Banana Loaf with Walnuts

It’s Autumn and the Feijoas are starting to fall from the trees in droves. Our family loves Feijoa and are lucky enough to have a few neighbours with trees who are happy to share! Check out our awesome Feijoa and Banana Loaf with Walnuts.

This recipe came about as we work our way though the COVID-19 crisis. Since we can’t go visiting people we have been expanding our walks and came across a park with a bunch of walnut tress. This lead to a fantastic afternoon of foraging with the kids for walnuts. It was so much fun!

And the best thing is that walnuts are really, really good for you. In fact, walnuts are rich in omega-3 fats with lots of antioxidants. And eating walnuts may even improve brain health and prevent heart disease and cancer!

Then our wonderful neighbour gifted us a giant bag of Feijoas and we discovered we had some over ripe Bananas sitting in our fruit bowl too. And what better way to use up all these yummy ingredients than throwing them together in a bowl and making a delicious Feijoa Banana and Walnut loaf.

But before we get on to the recipe, let’s take a moment to think about the benefits of feijoa! They’re very high in fibre and vitamin C, which is perfect as we go into the cooler months. And most interestingly, they have a special antioxidant in them that reduces inflammation. So they’re awesome on tummies too!

I like making this recipe with the kids because there is not much you can do wrong with it, and it will still turn out moist and delicious!

Now I will admit that baking is not my strong point. And baking with the kids I can sometimes find stressful. But since we’ve been in lock down it has almost become a daily occurrence for something engaging to do with the kids.

I find that if I’m going to cook with kids, to make it as stress-free for me as possible I have to get out all the ingredients, and all the cups, bowls and measuring spoons, all set out before I need them. This stops a lot of fluffing about in the kitchen, and potential spills because my back is turned busy looking for ingredients or utensils. In fact, I don’t even ask the kids to come into the kitchen until I’m totally ready to go.

It also means I can just concentrate on the kids up at the bench, helping them to identify different ingredients, and measure them out, which is the real fun part.

Kids love cooking and it teaches them so many valuable life-skills. I love watching the pure concentration on their faces when they are measuring, or their fascination with all the ingredients being mixed together.

My kids loved being able to chop and mash the Bananas and Feijoas and cracking the walnuts. These skills are all great for building up their fine motor skills, and allowing them to feel a sense of achievement which gives our little ones a great confidence boost.

Now I won’t lie to you cooking with children can get rather messy. My little ones are always spilling and missing the bowl, or flicking flour all over the place! I just make sure that I go into the process with a mindset that it’s going to get messy and just have a few extra paper towels and wipes on hand.

If you have more than one child cooking it can also be a great way to teach them about sharing, taking turns, and woking together towards a common goal (which is often licking the bowl!).

If, like me, you are intolerant to eggs you can use Egg Replacer in this recipe, and it works out well. The brand I use that seems to work really well in most of the baking and cooking we do is Orgran Gluten Free Egg Replacer. I think I got mine from New World.

I hope you enjoy making this yummy bread as much as the kids and I did. We ate it warm with a little spread of butter. Perfect midmorning snack on a brisk Autumn day.

Feijoa Banana and Walnut Loaf

Print

Feijoa Banana and Walnut Bread

This is a delicious sweet bread, perfect to eat warm with a spread of butter!

Course Snack

Keyword snack

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Resting time 10 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes

Servings 15 Slices

Ingredients

• 2 cups Flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup raw sugar
• 1 egg or used egg replacer.
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas about 2 large bananas
• 1 cup mashed ripe feijoas about 4 feijoas

Sugar and Walnut Topping

• 1 Tbsp raw sugar
• 1/2 cup walnuts chopped roughly

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (conventional bake). Grease and line the base of a 13cm x 23cm x 70 (6 cup capacity) loaf tin with baking paper.

2. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon into a mixing bowl.

3. In a separate bowl beat together raw sugar, oil, egg or egg replacer, mashed feijoas and mashed bananas to combine.

   

4. Pour the wet ingredients into the middle of the dry ingredients and fold the ingredients together.

   

5. Pour into prepared loaf tin.

6. In a small bowl mix the sugar and copped walnuts and sprinkle over your mixture

   

7. Bake for 55 - 60 minutes until cooked and a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf will come out clean. Leave in the tin to cool for 10 minutes before turning onto a cake rack to cool completely. Cut into slices, and serve warmed with butter.

If you enjoyed making this recipe be sure to check out our other baking recipes.

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