Stevia

I had a couple of bananas loitering in the kitchen at the weekend that really needed something useful to do. So I decided to make a banana cake, (very) loosely following this recipe

I am not very fond of cardamom. It's not that I don't like the taste. It's more that I find it remarkably overpowering, so that you can't taste anything but cardamom. And there doesn't seem to be much point in making a banana and choc chip cake if all you can taste is cardamom. So I left it out.  I also reduced the amount of chocolate by half.  And in the interests of fitting into my summer shorts, should the sun ever oblige and shine, I replaced the sugar with 10g of stevia, which I hadn't ever used before. It's a herb based sweetener, which has a very pleasant herby after taste. I quite liked it

The cake itself was absolutely delicious. Lovely and moist. Quite fluffy.  Something of a treat. I shall definitely make it again

I'm not sure that I'll use the stevia again, though.  Which is a bit of a pity because I've got quite a bit left and it's not exactly cheap.

But about half an hour after eating my piece of banana cake I realised that the left side of my mouth had gone a bit numb and my lips were tingling. My eyes were itchy. My throat was scratchy. I felt a wee bit spacy. It was very much the sort of reaction I get when I eat a piece of nut. A very mild allergic reaction to something.  Only I hadn't eaten any nuts (I do actively avoid eating nuts because the reaction I get isn't always, or even often, a mild one!). The only things I had eaten that day were things that I had made myself, from first principles.  And the only new thing I had had was the stevia.

The reaction took a long time to subside ;-S

I decided the following day to try a small piece of the cake and see if it happened again.  And it did, only more quickly this time.  It also proved very difficult to swallow the cake. I decided that maybe I should listen to what my body was saying and not eat any more.

I had had a quick hunt on the internet and see that American comments suggest that people do seem to have allergic reactions to stevia, but that largely they're people who are allergic to other members of the daisy family (I'm not) or to related foods (bananas are among the list - but I've been perfectly ok eating plain bananas ).  There is no suggestion that people who are allergic to tree nuts should avoid eating stevia.  It's all a bit odd.

But I think next time I'll put more banana, no sugar or stevia and perhaps a little bit of honey.

And The Builder was perfectly happy finishing up the very delicious banana cake!!