You know me. Usually I stick flowers all over the cakes I make. Loads of icing. Berries. Cream. More Icing. Crystallised flowers. Stuff everywhere. But let me tell you, this beautiful cake needed nothing. No rum flavoured syrup, no peanut butter icing with banana chips. It's just a lightly spiced honey flavoured banana loaf. The texture is soft and pillowy. When I had it for breakfast I sighed. I have to make it again soon.
The recipe I used is from The Hummingbird Bakery, I doubled the mix and it worked perfectly too. I used very ripe bananas and I think that might be the key to it. Brownieville Girl also has a lovely banana recipe on her blog this week, Nigella's Banana, white chocolate and cranberry muffins. Yum!
Banana Loaf270g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
200g peeled bananas, mashed
280g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon'
1 tsp ground ginger
140g butter, melted
A 23x13cm loaf tin, greased & dusted with flour
Makes 8-10 slices
Method
- Preheat the oven to 170C.
- Beat the sugar & eggs until well mixed. Beat in the mashed bananas.
- Add the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda & spices to the egg mix.
- Mix well until everything is well combined.
- Pour in the melted butter and beat until well mixed.
- Pour the mix into the prepared tin and smooth the top.
- Bake for about 1 hour, until firm to the touch.
- Leave to cool in the tin for a while before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.
According to The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook (which is really good) this stuff flies off the shelves. A really gorgeous cake. I'll definitely be making it again!
Lillyx
Posts
This post hurt me real deep...I've just set up another blog Confessions of a Low Carb Virgin. I made brownie's last night before my endeavor. I will strive to find a baked good that I can eat on my diet :)Dying for a birra banana bread!
ReplyDeletehttp://lowcarbvirgin.blogspot.com/2010/08/shure-god-help-me.html
Little Miss S:I must find some nice low carb recipes! Rice pudding? No. Bread and butter pudding? No. Your first post on the new blog is brilliant!x
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm thinking of a walnut swiss roll. I made it before in Slovenia and it uses crushed walnuts instead of flour and creme fraiche (I think) as a filling. The chef teaching me how to make it thought it was creme fraiche but it looked more solid. It was the nicest thing in the world. I shall look into it and hopefully have a post in the next few days.
ReplyDeleteNigella's banana loaf is my standard, but this has more sugar so is clearly worth a go. We sneak it into occasional school lunches and call it bread so that teachers can't complain.
ReplyDeleteLooks fantastic Lilly, I really like the idea of the spices in it.
ReplyDeleteThanks a million for the mention :-}}
ooh how autumn-y : ) and who doesn't feel virtuous using those lost souls of brown bananas just when they had given up all hope?
ReplyDeleteYummm. Just like home. I love ANYTHING from Hummingbird Bakery!!
ReplyDeleteany idea what would happen if i left out the bicarb of soda?
ReplyDeletei have everything else and i hate the supermarket at the moment ... HELP I want this!
Hi Sarah Jane! I'd say substitute the bread soda for baking powder? But use 2 teaspoons of baking powder x
ReplyDelete