Banana Bread

Finally back in the kitchen to bake…I blame a combination of lack of time, family commitments, and not having anyone around to bake for. So when my brother came to stay for the weekend, I had to make the most of it. Although I still didn’t have the energy to try anything particularly exciting.

Instead, I tried a new twist on something I love and had been hankering after for a while: banana loaf. When I was little, banana cake was a semi-regular occurrence. My dad was always fussy about when he’d eat a banana – it had to be green and still slightly woody. As soon as they started to ripen, the likelihood of consumption began to decrease, and once they were tinged brown, the only way of getting rid of them was to bake them in a cake. My mum always baked them in a shallow bundt tin, then iced them with a slightly lemon-y buttercream. And to this day, that’s my absolutely favourite way of eating bananas (I’m not fond of them as fruit, though I like the flavour).

Knowing my brother was coming and that he too appreciated a decent banana cake, I picked up a bunch whilst out shopping and set about deciding on which recipe exactly to follow. I’m fairly sure than when my mum makes one, she simply uses a basic sponge cake mix and adds some mashed bananas and spices. I was all set to do the same, but in my usual pre-baking web browse I found a recipe that replaced one of the eggs with some milk and used a different method from my usual beat and stir sponge cake method, and decided to give it a go.

The results are something I was really rather pleased with. I tweaked the recipe a little bit to suit my tastes – using brown sugar instead of white to give a vaguely caramelised taste, and adding some mixed spice to emulate my mum’s spicy banana cake – but will definitely be using it again next time I want to make an easy, tasty banana cake. The recipe calls for melting the butter and sugar with some vanilla essence, then mixing in the bananas, egg, milk and flour. The result is a super-moist cake with a lovely banana flavour that shines through even with the added spices and vanilla essence. The other innovation in the recipe was the suggestion of sprinkling demarara sugar over the top just before baking, which gave the cake a lovely crunchy top which meant that icing was not really a requirement (making the cake feel slightly healthy and very afternoon-tea-ish, which I liked).

My brother seemed to appreciate it too, although I did make him some lemon buttercream to add to his slices. The cake lasted well too. I cut it into slices and gave most to my brother to take with him when he left to move into his new home and job. I kept several for myself though, and they were just as moist and tasty several days after baking as they were fresh, which is great news for a girl who doesn’t usually get through cakes particularly quickly!

Banana Bread Recipe

2 bananas, roughly mashed

180g flour

125g butter

155g brown sugar

1tsp vanilla essence

1 egg, beaten

60ml milk

1.       Melt the butter, sugar and vanilla in a pan.

2.       Mix in the mashed bananas

3.       Mix in the beaten egg

4.       Mix in the flour and any desired spices (I used mixed spice).

5.       Bake at 175C for 35 minutes