Marble Banana Skillet Bread (vegan, gluten-free, grain-free)

Current Status: Working from home, and baking... a lot.

Through this crazy, unprecedented time there is only one thing that can keep me sane - baking (also: exercise, movies, FaceTime with family & friends, and my loving boyfriend).

We stocked up at the grocery store with everyone's typical essentials: oat milk, 'hempeh', Japanese sweet potatoes (...just us?), but I decided to add bananas to our basket. In recent months, I had only been buying bananas once in a while to freeze for smoothies but this time I grabbed a bunch of bananas, for baking.

Like I said, I have been working from home, which has been an adjustment. There are times I'm on 4-hour non-stop conference calls or crashing a script together, and then there are moments when I am kind of waiting on something to do. In those in-between moments, I've tasked myself with mini projects: clean out my underwear drawer, organize 1 shelf of the pantry, get dinner started. I asked myself if making a full-on banana bread recipe would be too much. Alas-- I created this banana skillet bread just before being summoned to another meeting.

Although this can be made quickly, it's also a great baking project and it's a tasty new breakfast or snack to add to your quarantine-routine. There's no added sugar (just some super sweet, ripe bananas), it's gluten and grain-free if you're into that. It's vegan (no eggs or dairy) but can easily be made with eggs, too!

Serves: 8 (or a hungry quarantined couple)

Prep Time: 10 min

Total Time: 30 min

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INGREDIENTS

• 2 flax eggs (2 Tablespoons ground flax + 6 Tablespoons water / OR use 2 eggs)

• 2 ripe bananas, mashed

• 1/3 cup coconut, melted or avocado or canola oil

• 1/3 cup straggle-nut butter™ (any nut butters you have on hand)

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1.5 cups almond flour

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• optional: 1 Tablespoon cocoa powder or cacao powder

• optional: flakey sea salt

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and spray 10-12" skillet (cake pan or pie dish) with nonstick cooking spray

2. Make flax eggs, let sit for 5 minutes

3. In a medium bowl combine: flax eggs, mashed bananas, oil, nut butter and vanilla extract.

4. Add almond flour and baking soda. Stir to combine

5. Move half of the mixture to a separate bow and stir cocoa powder into one of the bowls

6. Add plain banana bread batter to skillet, then add dollops of cocoa powder/banana batter and swirl together with a spatula

7. Top with a sprinkle of flakey sea salt

8. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until it passes the 'toothpick test'

9. Allow to cool completely before slicing

If you make this recipe, please share and tag me @bewellwithmarissa !