Thursday 10 June 2010

Banana bread

Very easy and absolutely delicious - ideal for lunchboxes, picnics, afternoon tea, evening snacks, breakfast, midnight feasts...


Makes: 12 slices
Takes: 10 minutes plus 1 hour cooking time

Ingredients

4 very ripe bananas
2 3/4 oz butter or margarine
7 oz brown sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp vanilla essence
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
8 oz plain flour

Method
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180oC (fan oven) and grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.
  2. Mash the bananas to a pulp with the butter (softened if necessary). Mix in the sugar, the egg (beaten), and the vanilla essence.
  3. Sift in the bicarbonate of soda, salt and flour and mix everything together thoroughly. Pour into the prepared tin.
  4. Bake for about an hour, until a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. If the top starts to look too brown before the centre is cooked, cover loosely with some foil.
  5. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire cooling rack. It's easier to remove the lining paper after the loaf has cooled down. Allow to cool completely before slicing.
Freezes well, either as a complete loaf or as individual slices. Pop a frozen slice into a packed lunch and it will have defrosted by lunchtime!