Gluten Free Banana Bread Texture

Our answer

Nigella's Gluten-Free Banana Bread has been a hugely popular gluten-free recipe and it seems unusual for this cake to be dry. Many banana breads are better if left for a day before they are cut as they seem to become moister. Generally bananas help to produce moist baked goods as the fructose sugar in the bananas helps to attract moisture. However, you do need to make sure that the bananas are really ripe. We would suggest waiting until the stems have shrivelled and blackened and the skins are mottled with brown spots. As bananas ripen the starches in the fruit turn into sugars so the riper the banana, the sweeter it will be. The batter for the banana bread should also be quite loose, which is easier to achieve if the bananas are very ripe.

The rice flour does give the banana bread a slightly different texture, as does the addition of ground almonds. The almonds also help to keep the bread moist. However almond flour and ground almonds are the same thing, so we would not recommend adding any extra. Almond meal is made from almonds ground with the skin on and can be used in this recipe instead of ground almonds made from blanched or skinned almonds.