Banana bread

‘Nana’ bread

This banana bread will stay moist and delicious for a while, best served warm! Ingredients required:

• 175g plain flour
• 2tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 125g unsalted butter
• 150g sugar (less if you don’t like it too sweet
• 2 large eggs
• 4 very ripe bananas
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• variation 1 with walnuts
• variation 2 with pecan nuts
• variation 3 with chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degree C or gas mark 3
2. In a medium sized bowl, add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt
3. In a separate large bowl, mix melted butter and sugar and beat until blended
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the mashed banana, optional walnuts/ pecan/ chocolate chips and vanilla essence
5. Add the flour mixture a third at a time, stirring well each time
6. Scrape into a loaf tin (alternatively I sometimes use muffin size tins to make smaller ones, note: baking time to be reduced in this case) and bake for 1-1.25 hours depending which type of oven you have. If you are baking first time, best to keep an eye on it after the initial 40mins
7. When you can see the bread has turned golden through the oven glass, insert a fine skewer into the loaf to test if the bread is ready. If the skewer comes out clean, the bread is ready
8. Leave the loaf in the tin to cool for 15-20mins before serving

Let’s go baking!