Gluten Free Feijoa Date & Ginger Loaf Recipe

Earlier I posted praising gluten free sourdough for its simplicity and versatility. Sourdough helps with strong binding for recipes like bread, pizza dough, and crackers. You can make an All-purpose GF Flour Mix that can be used for other cooking and baking, but it often needs a bit of tweaking to get recipes to work as they can be a bit dry and crumbly. I am working my way through some of my favourite recipes and updating them to be gluten free.

All-purpose GF Flour Mix
300g brown rice flour
220g buckwheat flour
120g tapioca starch

One of my favourite recipes (and well liked by many of my readers) is Feijoa, Date & Ginger Loaf. It is dark and rich and moist and yummy! And I would BUY feijoas to make it if I had run out of them from my tree.

I tried it using simply a straight swap of the All-purpose GF flour for plain flour and it was somewhat dry and crumbly. Still edible but lacking that moist yumminess. Adding an extra egg to the recipe made all the difference.

GF Feijoa, Date & Ginger Loaf
1 cup feijoas, peeled and diced (can be frozen)
150g dates, chopped
100g crystallised ginger, chopped
250mls boiling water
150g raw sugar*
50g butter
2 eggs, beaten
1tsp vanilla extract
270g flour
1 tbsp ginger
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C on bake and grease a loaf tin.
Place the feijoa, dates, ginger, water, butter and sugar into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool.
Mix together the GF flour, ginger, baking powder and soda and add to the fruit mixture once cooled along with the egg and vanilla. Do not over mix (this mixture is quite thick).
Spoon the mixture into the greased tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

* I also tried substituting coconut sugar for the original brown sugar, which made it less sweet, but unfortunately I discovered that coconut sugar can be a problem if you are on a FODMAP diet. So far using raw sugar has been the best option.

I usually slice the loaf and store it in the freezer, so that I can bring out a slice or two as required. You can simply let it thaw or put it in the toaster and serve warm with butter.