Banana Loaf

5th September 2018

The Great British Bake off returned to our screens last week for its much anticipated ninth series. The biggest baking show on TV features amateur bakers from across the UK putting their cooking skills to the test to produce sweet and savoury morsels for judging.

With this in mind, our latest blog features a sweet treat that you can create at home; Banana Loaf.

Banana Loaf Recipe

Bananas are the UK’s most popular fruit and, on average, each of us eats 10kg of bananas each year. That’s approximately 100. The humble banana is a nutritional powerhouse and is packed with potassium (for heart health) and carbs (for energy).

Our recipe, via Good Food Magazine, is a great way of using up rip or slightly overripe bananas.

Ingredients

100g softened unsalted butter

140g light muscovado sugar

2 large eggs

3 large ripe bananas, mashed (about 450g/1lb total weight)

50g pecans or walnuts, roughly chopped

50g raisins

150ml buttermilk

280g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to fan 160C/ conventional 180C/gas 4. Butter a 20 x 13cm loaf tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar with an electric whisk until creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time (don’t worry that the mixture looks curdled). Stir in the mashed bananas, nuts, raisins and buttermilk.
  3. Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda on top of the banana mixture, then fold in until evenly mixed, taking care not to overmix. Spoon into the prepared tin and level the top.
  4. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes until a skewer pushed in the centre comes out almost, but not quite, dry. Remove from the oven and leave for about 10 minutes, then turn it out of the tin on to a cooling rack to cool.
  5. You can also add icing to the top of your loaf, if you wish. To do this simply mix approximately 50g of icing sugar with 2-3 tsp cold water to give a smooth, runny consistency. Using a dessertspoon, drizzle the icing in lines across the loaf.
  6. Serve and enjoy!

Trevor Mottram

For loaf tins, mixing bowls, weighing scales and other baking equipment, be sure to head to Trevor Mottram in The Pantiles. The Tunbridge Wells cookware shop is chock-a-block with kitchen must-haves to ensure you cook up a storm this autumn.

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