BANANA BREAD

Who can’t resist the smell of freshly baked Banana Bread?  If you’re the type of person who can’t say no to Banana Bread, you belong to my Banana Bread kinfolks.  I love spreading good butter on my slices of Banana Bread, accompanied with a good cup of coffee…heaven on earth moment!  Honestly would trade a bar of chocolate for a loaf of Banana Bread but then if its Fruit & Nuts Choc Bar that’s another story…

Australians love their Bananas, I grew up with an ad that have this crazy jingle that it will “make your body sings!”.  Bananas are Mr Adventurous favourite fruit to take to school for “brain break” (snack early in the morning, they are allowed to have nutritious nibbles while they are doing their morning activities)…. but honestly I have to confess there are only two kinds of bananas I like in particular, the Saba (cooking banana) and the green type (it looks like long Cavendish but ripens with green skin) sold in the Philippines, the rest of the banana varieties makes me gag.  This is one of my few weird quirky food relationship I have since I was small, hehehehe!  That’s why I love Banana Bread, because I can use Cavendish or Ladyfinger without any trouble wolfing down the end baked creation.

For starters one must have overripe bananas for Banana Bread.  Just ripe won’t do, it have to be the blotchy brown speckled skinned ones with really strong banana aroma that shouts “I’m funky overripe, use me now!'”, good indication is when you enter your kitchen and you can tell/smell you have bananas lurking somewhere.

This Banana Bread recipe is not the moist kind, this version when sliced can be lightly toasted under the grill before spreading some good butter over one side just before eating.  It has the texture of a muffin but not crumbly.  Make some and share with your family and friends, nothing beats home baked treats specially when you made it yourself….

 

BANANA BREAD

INGREDIENTS:

3 1/2 cup plain flour

1 tspn ground cinnamon

2 tspn baking powder

1/2 tspn baking soda

1 tspn coarse cooking salt

1 1/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

200g whole pecans, roughly chopped

6 medium size overripe bananas

200g unsalted butter, melted & cooled

2 tspn vanilla essence

4 large eggs, beaten

 

2 loaf tins (8 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 2 1/2" each) lined with baking paper

*used U.S Measuring Cups & Spoons

 

COOKING PROCEDURE:

~ Preheat your oven to 180C. Place your rack in the middle of your oven.

~  Peel all your bananas and mash it with the back of a fork.  Once all the bananas are mashed up, pour in your beaten eggs & cooled melted butter.  Add in your vanilla essence and give the banana mixture a good stir to combine everything well.  Set aside.

~ In a big clean & dry sieve, add your flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon & salt, sift them all together over a large mixing bowl.  Add in your brown sugar & coarsely chopped pecans, stir the dry ingredients well together with your spatula.  Pour in the banana mixture into your combined dry ingredients.

~  With a big spatula, combine the two mixture together gently.  Do not over mix!  Just make sure that the dry ingredients gets wet with banana mixture.  It suppose to look rough and chunky.  Divide the mixture into your two prepared lined loaf tins.

~  Make sure when you placed your Banana Bread mixture inside your loaf tins that all the corners are filled and to finish just smooth the top evenly .  I achieved this with a butter knife and my spatula working together as the mixture was on the sticky side.  Bake in the middle rack of your oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the top turns into a lovely golden brown colour and your test skewer comes out clean.

~  Once done, remove the loaf tins out of the oven.  After 1-3 minutes, lift the freshly baked loaves of Banana Bread out of the hot tins by tugging into the baking paper sides and placing the loaves (cradled still by the baking paper) on top of your cooling rack.  I do this to avoid cooking the bottoms of my Banana Bread any further.

MAKES:  2x Loaves

BEST WITH:  Best butter spread you can find and a big cup of coffee or hot chocolate.

NOTES:

• Love using baking paper when baking as I don’t need to wash up my baking tins.  I just use a clean kitchen towel to wipe them clean =)

• This Banana Bread once cooled can be wrapped snuggly with cling wrap and stored in the freezer.

• Cold Banana Bread slices can be reheated inside the microwave for a couple of seconds or lightly toasted under the grill but you have to keep an eye when you use the grill as Banana Bread can easily burn.