Banana tea bread crisis

I’d tweeted a request for a banana bread recipe and tried it the other day but when I tried to find it again I failed.

After an emergency tweet request Steph (aka @NorthNorfolk) came through a second time around.

So, to save the recipe for posterity, having made another lovely loaf this evening, here is Steph’s recipe:

Ingredients:

• 75g butter – softened
• 175g caster (or granulated) sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 225g SR Flour
• 1/4 tsp bicarb of soda
• Pinch of salt
• 450g ripe bananas weighed with skin (about 4 medium bananas), peeled and mashed
• 100g walnuts (optional and I sometimes substitute with plain choc chips)

Method:

• Heat oven to 180 degrees C or Gas mark 4.  Or 160 degrees C in a fan oven.
• Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.  Or grease with butter and then flour.  If you’ve never done this before you just tip a bit of flour in and swizzle it around a bit until all the inside of the tin has a thin  dusting of flour.  It’s a good idea to do this even if you have a non stick tin.
• Mix flour, bicarb and salt.
• Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  I use a Kenwood Chef and blitz with K beater on max to achieve this.  Doing this by hand is good exercise.
• Add eggs a little at a time with a little bit of flour each time.  Mix thoroughly.  I give this another full blast mix in the Kenwood.
• Stir in bananas, remaining flour and walnuts (or choc chips) if using.
• Tip into the tin and bung it in the oven for an hour and a quarter.
• When the timer bleeps (and I recommend setting a timer to avoid  the smell of burnt disappointment) check the loaf with a skewer.  If the skewer goes in the middle of the loaf and comes out clean out then the loaf is ready.  This loaf does need a lot of baking and it’s tempting to take it out when the top is a light brown.  This is a mistake because it won’t be cooked properly in the middle.
• Wait until the loaf has cooled before slicing and I cut the loaf into lunchbox size portions and freeze, taking out a fresh slice for the children’s lunchboxes in the morning. 
• If you do freeze the loaf, as mentioned above, then each piece will defrost and be nicely warm after 30 seconds in the microwave.

So thank you Steph, for saving me twice.  And the next time someone asks, feel free to share this link.