First you will need these:
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| Tea optional |
10oz plain flour
1 tea spoon of bicarbonate of soda
A half a tea spoon of salt
4oz butter salted or unsalted (if using salted dont add salt to your mixture) and a little extra for greasing
8oz caster sugar
2 large eggs, free range if possible
Between 5 and 8 over ripened black bananas, mashed. Depending on how much you want your banana bread to taste of banana's!
85ml of milk mixed with 1 and a half teaspoons of lemon juice or alternatively you could use butter milk I just didn't have that floating around the house!
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
Scales
2 mixing bowls
A wooden spoon
Sieve
Jug and/or measuring cups
A loaf tin, preferably one that's not too large.
Now onto how to make this yummy treat!
Step one: First you will need to pre heat your oven to 180 degrees. If you're using a fan oven i'd suggest going a little lower at around 150, I have a fan oven and I found 180 to be just that little bit too high.
Step two: Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt (if you're using unsalted butter) into a large mixing bowl.
Step three: In your other mixing bowl you'll need to cream the butter and sugar together until it's lovely light and fluffy. I tend to use a wooden spoon for this bit unless you're lucky enough to own your own mixer! Another thing to remember is to make sure that your butter is super soft and room temprature otherwise you'll make the same mistake I did first time making this and thats trying to fluff rock hard butter, arm ache!
Step four: Get mashing those banana's! Its messy job but a somewhat enjoyable one too. Make sure your bowl is big enough as once these bad boys are mashed they are a massive pile of un-attractive slop but they smell is wonderful!
Step five: Add your eggs, mashed up banana's, milk and vanilla extract into your light and fluffy butter and sugar mixture. Make sure to add them in that order to avoid too much curdling. If you're making this mixture with the milk and lemon concuction you will get some curdling its un-avoidable so dont be disheartend if this happens to you, it may look un apatising but it still does the same job and tastes wonderful once its baked.
Step six: Slowly add your fluffy eggy buttery banana mixture to the flour mixture by folding it in be careful not to knock out too much of that air.
Step seven: Greese your tin with that left over butter and slowly pour your bread mixture into the tin.
Step eight: Stick it into the oven for about an hour. Mine is usually ready in an hour but I check on the half hour just to see how its coming along as it normally rises and starts turning that lovely golden colour quickly. I test mine by taking it out of the oven and slowly putting a knife into the mixture seeing if any mixture sticks on it. If it does put it back in the oven keeping an eye on it. Don't worry if yours takes less or more time to cook. Different ovens will do this.
Step nine: Transfer it onto a wire rack to cool. Once cooled slice it and serve it as you wish. I like to add a garnish of banana's on the side maybe a little bit of cream if i'm feeling a little bit naughty.
I so do love banana bread. I find it perfect to snack on, pack in your lunchbox to take to work with you or even bake for a loved one (providing they like bananas!) Next time I make it i'm going to get a little more adventurous with it and add coconut or even chocolate chunks to it, i'll let you know how that goes!
Until next time my tea drinkers!
