Last week I found myself with a glut of browning bananas - not sure how it happened as usually the bananas run out just before the veg box day, but this time there were just tons.

Rather than see them waste away I decided to make a banana loaf, a classic hearty cake that is perfect for a teatime treat. As it also lasts for ages you can enjoy the treat well into the working week.

As always with classic recipes I turned to Delia and the Good Housekeeping (a vintage gem, ours has hilarious photos of endless beige food, mostly in aspic, but is a great reference). Delia had a lovely easy version with bananas and walnuts. It really is a doddle, just assemble and bake. I didn’t have a loaf tin but the £1 shop down the road had packets of aluminium take out trays that were just perfect for the job (12cmx20cm at top).

Now I’m no baker but you’ve got to admit that is a pretty fine loaf, and it tasted as good as it looked. Not too sweet with a rich nuttiness and fruity banana flavour cut through by the citrus zest.

Ingredients
From Delia’s Complete Cookery

75g very soft butter/margarine
1 teaspoon baking powder
110g caster suger
1 large egg
225g plain flour
4 ripe medium bananas
1 orange
1 lemon
50g walnuts

1 Preheat oven to 180 C, Grease loaf tin, roughly chop walnuts, beat egg and zest lemon and orange
2 Put butter, sugar and egg into a large mixing bowl
3 Sift in flour and baking powder
4 Mix well (it will look a bit dry but don’t worry the bananas will sort that out)
5 Mash bananas with a fork and add to mixture with lemon and orange zests and walnuts
6 Mix well and pour into tin
7 Bake on middle shelf for 50-55 mins (it’s ready when it looks golden and springs back when pressed)
8 Cool in tin for 10 mins before turning out onto cooling rack (use a knife to loosen the edges) - store in kitchen roll in a cake tin for up to 4 days (maybe longer, it was finished by then in my house). Serve with a nice cup of tea

Tags: banana, banana bread, banana walnut loaf, walnut

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 at 11:21 am by urban foodie and is filed under Kid Friendly, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.