Banana Bread

Banana Bread is a great way to use up any bananas that may be at risk of going off, not to mention being absolutely delicious with a cup of tea! It's easy to do and very difficult to get wrong, even for the most amateur of bakers...like myself!

Many thanks to my friend Sherena for this recipe!

All you need is:
2 or 3 over ripe bananas,
125g butter (make sure this is room temperature, it makes it easier to mix together!),
150g sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, an egg and 190g of self raising flour.

Start by putting your butter, sugar, bananas and vanilla extract into a bowl. If your bananas are a little firm pop all of the ingredients into a food processor, also if you don't fancy whisking do this too!

It may seem like a small amount of vanilla extract, but it's highly concentrated, just trust the measurements!

Really get your arm into it and, mush up those bananas, break up ALL of that butter and mix together until everything is pretty much the same consistency. A firm whisk or fork works well. Once it reaches the stage of looking a little like porridge, all be it a very sweet one at the minute, add in one whole egg and the self raising flour. This will turn the mix a little more doughy and bind everything together.

This should now look a little more familiar as to what cake or bread mix looks like, and it should hold together pretty well too!

Pour this ALL into a greased loaf tin, and pop into a preheated oven at 180c for anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour.  You'll know it's ready when the top is a glorious light brown and you can poke a cocktail stick/kebab skewer etc. into the bread and remove it completely cleanly.

You can also add demerara sugar to the top halfway through baking for a little sweet crust, dust with icing sugar or even make a little glaze. Play around with it, personalise it and see what works for you!

Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see me bake in future!

Dan
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