Whole Wheat Banana Bran Loaf

Four years up with blogging on Veg Bowl and it almost feels unreal. Why? Because I admit I never thought I would take up blogging seriously. I began blogging more than five years ago. Before writing on Veg bowl, I blogged privately on a personal space which was limited to few of my family and friends. The huge inspiration came when I accidently stepped on a couple of family blogs and took hours to read through them. I was awestruck, and almost felt one with them. I thought it was a great idea to maintain a diary of memories that could be cherished later in life. I jotted down reminiscences of our travel, our family gatherings, weekly happenings, musings, and a bit more. But my blogging on it was quite temperamental. I spent a year on that, though not so passionately and unfolded Veg Bowl in parallel to jot down recipes I created eagerly in my little kitchen, penning down the recipes that were appreciated by my family and friends and posting pictures of dishes that came out of my kitchen.

Much before I got into mainstream blogging on Veg Bowl, I hadn’t explored my skills in food photography. I realized where my passions lay as I gained more readers and many friends through VB, and that was even before I existed on Facebook. My blogging on Veg bowl got more consistent than my personal blog and I lost interest in the other space with time. Somehow I wondered if VB would see the same fate soon, but it didn’t. There was a joy to learn, to connect with like-minded bloggers, to explore and do a lot in cooking and photography. Somewhere I believe that my interest in this blog was linked to this urge to learn photography.

Down the lane 4 years now, I still feel there’s a scope to learn and explore. I still enjoy the art of blogging that’s so creative and therapeutic. I have grown older and matured to better from where I started. On the flip side, I am not a social networking bee yet, and that explains why I am never so active on Facebook. But I love your emails and genuinely go through your comments. I am not on twitter yet, neither on instagram or googleplus or any other networking sites and pardon me on that. After a lot of persuasion, I finally have a VB like page on FB, but I’m not serious about it. Clichéd I know, but I don’t fit well into the whole concept of social networking well. Somehow it leads me to believe that social networking has become a wide spread web syndrome, with most of us hooking our precious time into the web mesh. We are so busy socializing and connecting on FB that we will miss out on living those beautiful moments of our life that can be cherished later. There are times I feel guilty while I’m busy blogging, because I should probably use that time to cater to my daughter and not miss watching her grow.

Yet with all that said, I do not intend to give up blogging in the near future. Because this space has given me a lot more than I expected. Like it keeps me active and thinking all the time. What began with just a food and photography site has grown to share a lot on my personal front apart from just recipes. VB was not meant to be a commercial blog, that’s why I choose to keep it clutter free, clean and minimal as possible. I vent out here, I speak a lot of my mind, share fond memories close to my heart, unleash the joy of cooking and creativity, and I love to part away with my most loved recipes and photographs with you all. That means a lot to me since it keeps me going, and connects with you all.

For the joy of completing 4 successful years of blogging and for more to come, I am celebrating this day with this Whole Wheat Banana Bran Loaf. Coincidently, it’s my daughter’s birthday today. What can be a greater joy than this? As I see her geared up to celebrate her big day this evening, I baked this easy and delicious, yet an all healthy loaf last evening so that we could wake up to treat her with a quick bite of this loaf and wish her good luck, the best of health and bounty happiness in life she deserves. Time is fleeting by unbelievably fast. From a new born baby to infancy and now a swift intelligent toddler that she is, she turned two today. Happy Birthday to both my sweethearts! Life cannot be better without you!

Whole Wheat Banana Bran Loaf

INGREDIENTS

1 ½ cup whole wheat flour (150 gm.)
1 tbsp. wheat bran
1/3rd cup vegetable oil (35 gm.)
2 very ripe bananas (60 gm.)
½ cup milk (40 ml.) {replace with vegan milk of your choice for a vegan version}
2/3rd cup organic dark jaggery (60 gm.)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cardamom powder

DIRECTIONS

Prepare a 8 inch pan by greasing and lining it with baking paper. Pre-heat the oven at 180 degrees C.

Pulse the bananas along with milk and jaggery in a food processor. Next add in the vegetable oil and blitz again. In a separate clean bowl, sift the whole wheat flour twice. Add baking soda, wheat bran and cardamom powder to this. Make a well and pour in the wet ingredients. Stir well till combined. The batter will be thicker than regular cake batter, but not stiff. At this stage you may add in nuts if preferred. Finally pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees C.

Notes:

* Jaggery has a typical rustic and earthy sweet flavour that’s customary to South Indian cooking. Hence pairing it with bananas and cardamom powder brings out a traditional aroma to this cake.
* I’ve used high quality organic jaggery here. The local jaggery available generally contains high amounts of impurities. Hence to remove the sediments, soak the jaggery in milk, dissolve it and strain it through. Alternatively, use brown sugar if jaggery is not available.
* To make a vegan version, replace milk with any vegan milk of your choice.
* Wheat flour and wheat bran bring out a nutty flavor to this cake, although you may replace them with plain flour altogether.