A Lighter Way To Bake... breakfast!

We are told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day yet many of us opt for a quick and often unsatisfying choice of toast or cereal. If you fancy mixing it up a little, but still want something easy to eat on the go, these recipes from my new book A Lighter Way To Bake may be just what you are looking for!

Just the right mix of naughty and nutritious, these delicious muffins and loaf are full of great flavours. Combining sweet potato with sage, or adding fruit or nuts is a great way to bring contrasting flavours and textures to your bake. Make a batch the weekend so you can enjoy over a lazy Sunday morning with the papers and still have some left for the mad Monday morning dash to work!

Raspberry & banana no-knead breakfast loaf

You need ripe bananas here but if your bananas are too hard and you can’t wait for them to mature here’s a fix: put them (unpeeled) on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and bake in a preheated 180C (fan 160C), 350F, gas mark 4 oven for about 20 minutes. The skins will blister and go brown, but the bananas will caramelise and become sweeter and tastier – just perfect for this recipe.

MAKES 1 LOAF OF ABOUT 10 SLICES

50g (2oz) unsalted butter

50g (2oz) soft light brown sugar

2 medium eggs, lightly beaten

100g (31⁄2 oz) wholemeal flour

125g (41⁄2 oz) plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 ripe bananas roughly mashed

125g (41⁄2 oz) raspberries

handful of rolled oats

● Preheat the oven to 180C (fan 160C), 350F, gas mark 4 and line a 22cm x 10cm (81⁄2 in x 4in) loaf tin with baking parchment. I make sure that the paper overlaps a little bit, which makes it much easier to remove the loaf from the tin once it is cooked.

● Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until it is nicely combined. Add the eggs in two batches, beating well between each addition. The mixture will look a little bit far from its best, but it will soon come good!

● Add the wholemeal flour, plain flour and baking powder and stir through until nicely mixed in. Then stir in the bananas, followed by a gentle fold in of the raspberries.

● Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, smooth out a bit with the back of a spoon, and then sprinkle the oats evenly over the top. Bake in the oven for 50–55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when pierced in the centre.

● Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before lifting out and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack. The loaf will stay at its best for 1 to 2 days when stored in an airtight container.

Pick up a copy of The Sun On Sunday for the full three recipes or subscribe to thesun.co.uk.



Pre-order A Lighter Way To Bake on Amazon, available to buy from the 10th October.