Luxury Banana Bread
I really started extensively baking banana bread a few years ago when my boyfriend/now fiancee/soon to be husband replaced breakfast by just grabbing a banana from the kitchen on the way to work. Some weeks there would invariably be some brown, spotted sad looking bananas left, which nobody really wanted to eat anymore. But then, throwing away anything still remotely edible has always been extremely difficult for me. My grandma, raised during Wold War II, drilled into me that nothing remotely edible should be thrown away, ever. You can always use anything leftover to create something new. Admittedly, she has taken it to extremes – I remember her saving about 2 tablespoons of leftover mash to then create 1 tiny potato cake the next day. Yet the message stuck with me and I absolutely hate throwing food in the bin. And it is true – we throw away slightly spoiled fruit and vegetables way too easily. So here is a great recipe for those bananas that nobody wants to eat! It takes the humble banana bread and turns it into a luxurious afternoon treat. Or breakfast. Or evening snack. Or all day meal.
I adapted the Banana Nut Bread recipe from Peyton and Byrne – basically making it a lot more indulgent by adding lots of chocolate. Because most things in life are improved, in fact, by chocolate. I’ve also reduced the sugar as I find that ripe bananas are already really sweet, and replaced butter with vegetable oil. In my experience, moist, slightly denser cakes often work better with vegetable oil, which is why I always bake muffins like this too!
Secrets to success:
- All cake baking ingredients should always be room temperature. You can sometimes split/curdle your cake mix if you have some really cold ingredients. It also gives a much nicer texture and flavour to the final product
- The riper the bananas are the better. The best banana bread I’ve baked has been with bananas that were basically black on the outside
- Don’t let your cake mix stand around – get it into the tin and straight into the oven! If you leave it to stand, the raising agent will start working and create little holes in the cake.
| Prep Time | 30 min |
| Cook Time | 45 min |
| Servings |
loaf
|
- 40 g Walnuts or Pecans
- 200 g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 125 ml plain vegetable oil
- 150 g light brown sugar
- 3-4 ripe bananas
- 2 eggs
- 60 ml buttermilk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 80 g chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips
- 100 g milk and 100g dark chocolate to drizzle over cake
- oil to grease tin
Ingredients
|
|
- Turn oven to 180 °C, lightly grease the cake tin with vegetable oil and line the bottom with baking paper
- Toast the nuts, 5-10 min in oven and then roughly chop. Turn oven down to 170°C.
- Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt together, mix through the nuts and chocolate chips and set aside.
- Whisk the eggs with the oil until well combined. Mash and stir in the banana, buttermilk and vanilla. Fold in the flour and fold in gently so everything is combined. Pour into tin, gently flattening the top and bake 30-45 min on the middle shelf.
- Remove from oven and cool 10 min, then turn out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.
- Once the cake is cool, melt the dark chocolate. The easiest way is simply in the microwave! Microwave 30 seconds, stir. Then microwave in 10second bursts until the chocolate has melted. Drizzle all over the cooled cake. Repeat with the milk chocolate. Serve with warm chocolate or cool – choice is yours!
