Popped Amaranth Triple Berry Banana Bread

This post shares a full recipe from my book which is great for using up all those frozen berries from your summer harvests.

This one in the pic is actually a ‘Quadruple Berry Banana Bread’! It was made with Goji berries, Service Berries, Currants and Blueberries from our garden, as well as Cannabis seeds (hemp hearts), homemade maple sugar, coconut oil, chai seeds, and homegrown amaranth flour)

This Super Nutritious and delicious Banana bread is made with Mayan superfoods, cashews, cannabis seeds (aka “hemp hearts”) and a mixture of berries. It is a vegan-friendly recipe as it uses coconut and hemp oil rather than butter and chia seed gel instead of eggs. I used 25% homegrown/home-milled amaranth flour and 75% organic sprouted store-bought wheat flour.

This recipe is a great way to use up those covertly cultivated front yard superfoods such as Amaranth seed and Serviceberries ;)

The addition of popped amaranth adds more nutrition and a lovely texture. Adding crushed cacao beans, cannabis seeds (or hemp hearts), berries, cashews and grated whole vanilla bean make this banana bread an extremely nutritious, energizing and exuberantly delicious snack. It freezes well and is lovely sliced as is or toasted with a bit of coconut oil melted on top.

some of the ingredients

Ingredients:

- 3 free run non-gmo eggs, (or 3 tbsp. chia seeds mixed with 9 tbsp-s water)

- ½ cup coconut oil (melted)

- ¼ cup chia seed gel

- 1.5 cups organic brown sugar (or better yet homemade maple sugar or Birch sugar)

- 4 - 6 mashed organic bananas (6 if using minimal berries, 4 is using lots of berries)

- 2 1/2 cups organic all-purpose flour

- 1/2 cup amaranth flour

- 1/2 cup popped amaranth seeds

- 1/4 cup sprouted flax seed powder

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp baking soda

- ¼ cup cannabis seeds (or hemp hearts)

- 1/4 cup walnuts or cashews (or better yet Hickory Nuts or Chestnuts)

- 1/2 - 1 cup frozen or fresh berries (such as Goji, Serviceberry, Blueberries, Currents etc)

- 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp grated vanilla bean (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)

- ¼ cup raw cocoa nibs

making the batter for triple berry banana bread

Directions:

To pop amaranth heat up a large stainless steel skillet on medium-high heat and slowly add little bits of amaranth seeds until you reach a temperature where they pop quickly. Clean out the pan and add enough amaranth seeds to cover the bottom of the pan but not pile up, move them around in the pan and once 75% or more have popped quickly remove from pan and set aside to cool.

this pic shows me adding frozen service berries and frozen goji berries from our 2023 harvest the other day to make a batch

Combine the eggs, oil, chai gel, sugar and mashed bananas in a bowl. Mix well (an electric mixture provides good results but you can whisk by hand if you don’t have one). In a separate bowl combine both types of flour, flax seed powder, cannabis seeds (hemp hearts), popped amaranth, nuts, berries, cocoa nibs, baking soda, and baking powder. Put everything together in one bowl, mix well. Pour into 4 small or 2 large well-greased loaf pans (muffin tins work too). Bake at 350 for 30-45 min (or until golden and toothpick comes out clean when inserted in top of loaf/muffin). Freezes well, can store in the fridge for at least 10 days.

Enjoy! :)

If you try making your own version of this I would enjoy hearing how it goes for you and would love it if you could post a pic and tag me.

Happy Baking Everyone!

Here are some pics of different variations of this recipe I have made in the last couple years for some inspiration for you to experiment and add your own flare to this recipe using seasonal ingredients:

strawberry rhubarb banana bread

Popped Hopi Red Dye Amaranth Banana Bread Muffins

Popped Hopi Red Dye Amaranth Banana Bread Muffin

Quadruple Berry Vegan Banana Bread Muffins (made with Goji berries, Service Berries, Currants and Blueberries from our garden, as well as cannabis seeds (hemp hearts), homemade maple sugar, coconut oil, chai seeds, and homegrown amaranth flour)

For a short video clip showing how easy it is to pop amaranth seeds:

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The recipe for Popped Amaranth banana bread above is from my recently published book (cover shown in image below).

For those of you interested in purchasing an Ebook copy of my book that option is now available through this link: https://payhip.com/b/6P5Ab?fbclid=IwAR1eIyc1hZU0q_KjJJDv2LGUfirxErNpey_jTpMV7vdVx4maB1ahZX2SNNM

For those interested in purchasing a physical copy of the book you can do so through this link:

https://recipesforreciprocity.com/shop/softcover/

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