Banana bread

I have baked many banana breads during the lockdown like everybody else. Just as the lockdown started we started ordering fruit boxes with a few too many bananas in them. And the banana cakes and breads were came in very handy to use the blackened, gone mushy bananas.

I started with the banana bread recipe from Ravneet Gill’s newly published book The Pastry Chef's Guide: The secret to successful baking every time. This book also arrived just in time for the lockdown baking and I had a chance to try a few recipes following the live instagram cook alongs with the author.

Recipe from the book was quite a lot for my small loaf tin that after so many years of baking I managed to forget the rule about not overfilling the tin and the batter spilled out of the tin during baking. Lesson learned, always fill the tin three quarters and bake muffins with the rest of the batter.

Cake was still delicious but it spiked my blood sugar quite a lot too. So I started playing around with the recipe reducing the sugar and baking it in an appropriate size loaf tin. After many trials I came up with a version that has just enough sugar that it tastes like a lightly sweetened bread with the full banana flavour and lots of nuts.

Ingredients

2 medium eggs 40 g soft brown sugar

40 g granulated sugar

60 g butter, more for greasing the tin

75 ml vegetable oil

2 medium ripe bananas, mashed

1 banana, halved to top the cake

65 g pecan nuts, roughly chopped

180 g Plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Method

Heat the oven to 165° fan and butter a 21 x 11 x 7 cm loaf tin.
In the bowl if a stand mixer beat the sugars and eggs for 7 minutes using whisk attachment on medium speed.
Add the butter & vegetable oil while continuing to beat.
Add the mashed bananas and pecan nuts and beat until all is blended in.
Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in to the bowl of the cake batter and fold in slowly using a spatula.
Pour the batter into the tin and top with the banana halves.
Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes or until a a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.