Classic recipe corner - Banana bread

One of the nice things about having a food blog is the fact you can preserve recipes for future generations. And as soon as I manage to hustle a member of said future generation into the kitchen, this is what I will teach them to make.




A loaf of banana bread - here posing coyly in front of the Kitchen Aid. It is not a pretty thing, nor glamourous, but it is simple and delicious and makes the home smell of all good things, which is just what baking should be.

I first baked banana bread when living with D at his request - it was not a recipe that had featured in my mother's baking repertoire as far as I recall. I had to borrow a loaf tin from his mother to make it. I never got round to giving it back to her. Now, whenever I it, I use Mary's tin and it reminds me, a little, of her.

The following top tip is all my own however. I always freeze bananas when they start to turn until I have enough to do something with them. Before incorporating them into the cake batter I microwave them, from frozen, for five minutes. The resulting banana purée can be squeezed out of the skins and requires no mashing. It makes life marginally easier...

Ingredients

225g self raising flour
Tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
100g caster sugar
100g butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp runny honey
100g sultanas
55g chopped walnuts
3 medium-large bananas, peeled and matched or reduced to sludge in the microwave (see above)
2 eggs
Juice of a lemon

Makes 1 loaf, 78 pro points for the whole

Preheat the oven to 180. Lightly spray a loaf tin with Fry Light to prevent the cake from sticking and line the bottom with greaseproof paper.

Sift the flour into a bowl (if you have a mixer use the bowl of that) and add the cinnamon, salt and sugar.

Mix in the butter (with spoon, fingers or mixer) until the mixture resembles damp sand. Then add the other ingredients and beat well into a loose batter.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and cover with foil, then turn the heat down to 170 and bake for a further 15-30 mins until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.