I dont think the atta flour did it. Was your leavening within due date? Sometimes the past date could also be an issue. But I generally tend to assume that hardness of a baked product could be due to 3 reasons. 1) There is not enough wet ingredients in the batter -i.e too much flour. Mostly increasing a little liquid tends to rectify the problem. The 2 large banana might not be large enough in your case. Next time around I will measure the Banana puree is cups just to be on the safer side. In fact I do it for my recent posts but will have to test it out with my old posts. 2) reason - The batter was mixed or stirred hard and for long. In most cases, a gentle mix or a folding of ingredients is enough. 3) reason - Overbaking or baking at a higher temperature. To avoid such problems its better to invest in an oven temperature which accurately measures if your oven is registering the correct numbers. Hope this helps --DK

Wheat germ is the embryo of the wheat kernel and is immensely nutritious. If you are unable to get your hands on it, simply replace it with wheat flour :) --DK

Pastry flour is a relatively low-protein flour. Its the protein in the flour which determines how tender or elastic your baked goods turn out. For a comparison check: Bread flour, has between 12% an 13% protein, ( more protein more chewy and elastic the product will be. So Pizzas, Yeast breads even Naan come out perfect with this flour. Cake flour has low protein 5% to 8% (hence not elastic but produces beautifully tender goodies. Cakes (duh!) come out super spongy. Pastry flour is between the above two, edging more closer to cake flour at 8% to 9% protein,- so it gives little more body to baked goods yet is tender If you cant find pastry flour - use cake flour and all-purpose flour in a ratio somewhere between two parts cake flour to one part all-purpose and one part cake flour to one part all-purpose. Or else simply use 2 tablespoon of cornstarch and fill the rest of 1 cup with APF. In this case try the same wheat flour (or chapathi flour...) I havent tried with wheat flour and corn starch combo personally though.