Going bananas for Banana Bread!

So it seems like college was a long time ago, and I’ve forgotten everything I ever knew about video editing…which means the Mammies Xtreme Day Out video will have to wait until the weekend when I have some time to figure it out! In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for a music backing track for the video, let me know!

While you wait for the video, I thought I should finally post my banana bread recipe, which I first mentioned about a week ago. But our Internet hasn’t been reliable enough since then to upload the photos for it. Today is the first time in what seems like forever that the connection has been constant.

My banana bread recipe is really Nigella Lawson’s recipe, tweaked to my tastes!

Ingredients
100g sultanas
75 ml Captain Morgans Spiced Rum (Nigella says: Bourbon or dark rum)
175g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
125g melted butter (Nigella says: unsalted)
150g sugar
2 large eggs
300g very ripe bananas mashed
60g chopped mixed nuts (Nigella says: walnuts)
1 tsp vanilla extract

On technique, I think the only thing I really vary from Nigella on is the sultanas. I stick them in a cup with the rum, microwave them for 1 minute and then leave them sit until I’m ready to add them. She recommends boiling them in a saucepan and then leaving them soak for an hour. She also recommends draining off the excess rum before adding it to the mixture – that doesn’t happen in my house!

From there on in, I stick to her recommendations. First I sieve the flour, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together.

Then I beat the melted butter and sugar together.

I add the eggs and beat the mixture well.

Then I mash up the bananas.

And I stir them into the mixture.

Then I add my mixed nuts and sultanas and I pour in a splosh of vanilla extract. Yes that is the technical term.

Finally I add the flour mixture.

And I stir it all slowly together.

Finally I put the whole thing into the oven at 180C for about 90 minutes.

Believe it or not I don’t have a good result photo, because I overdid it this time, but I’m going to blame the oven, which quit working just a couple of days after I baked this banana bread. Clearly it wasn’t regulating the heat properly or something!

So that’s it – Nigella inspired banana bread. Yum yum.

Edited to add this photo, since Jules is insinuating that the only reason I didn’t post it is because we ate the banana bread immediately – not true:

Overdone banana bread - still tasty though!

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If you have a similar recipe to share, why not enter it into my 100th post celebration contest: Details here