Show yourself some love by making my TLC Banana Bread. It uses up over ripe bananas and the ‘bread’ is light, moist and full of flavour. Not to mention that it’s delicious on its own or covered in custard!
Ingredients for 2 small loaf tins
| 4 | Over ripe bananas |
| 1 | Ripe banana (decoration) |
| 100g | Caster sugar |
| 75g | Unsalted butter |
| 100g | Chopped dates |
| 1-2 tsp | Vanilla extract |
| 2 | Large eggs |
| 220g | Self raising flour |
| 1 tsp | Sodium bicarbonate |
| Boiling water |
Method
- Pre-heat your oven to 190°C fan/400°F.
- Take your baking tins (I used 2 x small loaf tins) and grease them with a little butter and line them with baking parchment – this makes taking them out of the tin after baking loads easier!
- Place the chopped dates into a small bowl and cover with the boiling water. It should be just enough to cover the dried fruit.
- Add the butter and sugar into the bowl of a mixer and take a few moments to cream them together until the butter is light and the sugar is thoroughly mixed in.
- Peel the 4 over ripe bananas and place them in a bowl before mashing them with a fork.
- Pour the soaked dates along with the water into the mixing bowl along with the mashed banana and turn on the mixer to incorporate the ingredients.
- Add the eggs to the mixing bowl along with the vanilla extract and mix again before adding the flour and sodium bicarb.
- Turn on the mixer one last time to incorporate the flour into the batter. Ideally only mix it for as long as it takes for the flour to be incorporated. If you over mix the batter, you could be left with a tough texture once baked.
- Divide the mixture equally between both tins and top with half of the remaining ripe banana.
- Bake initially for 25 minutes and use a skewer to check if it’s ready. If the skewer is clean your banana bread is ready, however if it’s not quite done, lower the temperature to 100°C fan/210°F. and bake for a further 5-10 minutes.
- Remove the tins from the oven and leave them for at least 15 minutes before carefully removing the banana bread from the tin onto a cooling rack.
- Allow it to cool before eating and enjoy!
Notes
- If you don’t like dates, feel free to leave them out, but add 50-75ml of milk as you need to add more liquid to bake the batter the right consistency.
- Chocolate chips can be added to the batter for a nice twist, but I’d recommend you reduce the caster sugar amount by 25g.
- The banana bread can be frozen once cooled, but ours never lasts more than a couple of days before it’s been demolished!
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