Banana bread is one of our favourite recipes to cook at Conscious Kitchen. It’s the perfect thing to make when we get a crate of brown, overripe and pungent bananas. In this case, the browner the better as they’re packed with more natural sugars. There are many variants of this recipe, even within our volunteer team, so I am honoured to share my version.When I first tried vegan cake baking, I was often frustrated with the results as my cakes were quite dense and flat, I really missed that oily, butter taste and they often seemed too sweet. I talked it over with a few volunteers and learnt some tips. Firstly, I learnt that the enemy of vegan baking is stirring – so I am now very, very careful to avoid overmixing when I add the dry ingredients to the wet banana batter. Like barely combining it together. Secondly, I prefer to use coconut oil, which has a blander taste and am careful to add this early in the baking process so it’s really combined in the mix. Lastly, to give the maximum flavour without using lots of sugar, I use a combination of dark brown sugar and molasses as well as a generous helping of spice (to be honest I probably use more than listed in the ingredients but it’s useful as a guide). The cardamom fades as a background flavour and the molasses gives a caramel-y depth, so I find I don’t miss that extra sweet taste.