Banana Bread or Cake Recipe

[Bugsy]

Anyone have a good one? I've a load of over-ripe bananas and a school cake sale tomorrow ........

bugsy, found one on bbc food for you, not tested it myself.

here it is

hth.

Nigella Lawson's Domestic Goddess one. It's fantastic!

I need to go and murder DS2 before I can get the book and type the recipe though. He's having a tantrum in the hall at the moment.

1 small child screaming blue murder in his cot now. Ahhhh.

100g sultanas
75ml rum
175g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp salt
125g butter (melted)
150g sugar
2 large eggs
4 small very ripe bananas (about 300g without skin) mashed
60g chopped walnuts (I never use these)
1tsp vanilla extract
23 x 13 x 7cm loaf tin, buttered and floured or lined.

Put sultanas in rum in saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from heat, cover and leave for an hour or until the sultanas have absorbed most of the liquid. Drain.

Preheat oven to 170 oC/gas 3.

Put flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in large bowl and mix. In a lrge bowl, mix melted butter & sugar and beat until blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time then the mashed bananas. Stir in the walnuts, sultanas and vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add flour mixture a third at a time, stirring well after each bit. Scrape (or pour!) into the loaf tin and bake in the middle of oven fo 1 - 1.25 hours. Insert a toothpick into the middle which should come out cleanish when it's done. Leave in the tin to cool.

Personally, I shove the butter/sugar mix in a processor, add the banans & eggs, whizz it up and then use the pulse option to mix in the flour mixture then the sultanas. Works a treat.

here's a quick and easy one. did it only last week and it was a success.

4oz marg/butter,
4oz castor sugar,
2 beaten eggs,
3 large ripe bananas,
8oz self-raising flour (or 8oz plain flour with 11/2 tsp baking powder),
pinch of salt

cream tog the marg and sugar.
mix in the beaten eggs and the well-mashed bananas, adding a little flour if mixture tends to curdle.
sieve tog flour (and baking powder if using) and salt. mix gently into the ingredients already in the bowl.
pour into well-greased 1ib loaf tin and bake at 350f, 180c, gas 4 for 65-75 mins.
slice when cold!

enjoy!

Thank you all and apologies to the small screamer in SoupDragon's house!

Sounds nice Beetroot but unfortunately no choc chips in cupboard!

Small screamer in bed, asleep.

You don't need the rum in Nigella's cake BTW. You can plump up the fruit with fruit juice instead. But the rum is lovely.

mmm, I remember making one years ago after seeing it on Blue Peter!

Naughtynoonoo - I remember that too - I recall being strangely impressed that you could use bananas in a recipe!!

I pour a scrumptios caramel sauce on mine and the rest of it goes in the fridge to pour on ice cream.
1 tin sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoons golden syrup
100g butter
400g sugar
melt everything together stirring constantly till the sugar has melted (maybe 20mins) add a couple of tablespoons water and it's gone a caramel colour. Pour over cake. It's shouldn't set, but makes everything very sticky.

I know its too late for your sale but tonight I made a Vitoria sandwich and then whizzed 2 over ripe bananas in, then I addded orange juice becuase I was worried about teh bananas going black. Do you know it tastes great!!

Saw this on Jamie Oliver's site if anybody is interester for the future, sorry it's long winded, but I don't know how to do links:

Basic Bread Recipe

30g/1oz fresh yeast or 3 x 7g sachets dried yeast
30g/1oz honey (or sugar)
625ml/just over 1 pint tepid water
1kg/just over 2lb strong bread flour
30g/1oz salt
some extra flour for dusting

Stage 1
Dissolve the yeast and honey (or sugar) in half the tepid water.

Stage 2
On a clean surface or in a large bowl, make a pile of the flour and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in all the dissolved yeast mixture. With 4 fingers of one hand, make circular movements from the centre moving outwards, slowly bringing in more and more of the flour until all the yeast mixture is soaked up. Then pour the other half of the tepid water into the centre and gradually incorporate all the flour to make a moist dough. (Certain flours may need a little more water, so don’t be afraid to adjust the quantities.)

Stage 3
Kneading! This is the best bit, just rolling, pushing and folding the dough over and over for 5 minutes. This develops the gluten and the structure of the dough. If any of the dough sticks to your hands, just rub them together with a little extra flour.

Stage 4
Flour both your hands well, and lightly flour the top of the dough. Make it into a roundish shape and place on a baking tray. Deeply score the dough with a knife - allowing it to relax and prove with ease. Leave it to prove until it’s doubled in size. Ideally you want a warm, moist, draught-free place for the quickest prove, for example near a warm cooker, in the airing cupboard or just in a warmish room, and you can even cover it with clingfilm if you want to speed things up. This proving process improves the flavour and texture of the dough and should take around 40 minutes, depending on the conditions.

Stage 5
When the dough has doubled in size you need to knock the air out of it by bashing it around for a minute. Now you can shape it into whatever shape is required - round, flat, filled, trayed up, tinned up or whatever - and leave it to prove for a second time until it doubles in size again. The important thing is not to lose your confidence now. Don’t feel a need to rush through this, because the second proving time will give you the lovely, delicate soft texture that we all love in fresh bread.

Stage 6
Now it’s time to cook your loaf. After all your hard work, don’t spoil your efforts. You want to keep all the air inside the loaf, so dont knock it. Gently place it in the preheated oven, don’t slam the door. Bake according to the time and temperature given in the recipe variations which follow. You can tell if your bread is cooked by tapping its bottom (if it’s in a tin you’ll have to take it out). If it sounds hollow it’s cooked, if it doesn’t then pop it back in for a little longer. Place it on a rack to cool. You’re going to love this bread!

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Banana & Honey Bread

1 x basic bread recipe
6 bananas
8 tablespoons good, runny honey
optional: 1 handful of almonds, cracked or chopped

First of all, peel your bananas then purée them in a liquidizer or food processor. The mix will be surprisingly wet. Pour it into a measuring jug, then top up with water until you have 625ml or just over 1 pint. At Stage 1 of the basic bread recipe, use this banana liquid instead of the water to flavour your bread and make it nice and chewy. Also add half the honey with the nuts to the dough at this point.
Then continue through the basic recipe as normal.
At Stage 5 divide the dough into 10 balls. Then pack these next to each other in a flour-dusted baking tin where they will prove together. Before putting in the oven drizzle generously with the rest of the honey so that the top of the bread will caramelize, going nice and golden. Bake in your preheated oven at 190°C/ 375°F/gas 5 for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for a little while, but it’s best served still warm with lots of butter and a glass of milk for breakfast while you read the paper. Also fantastic used in bread and butter pudding or simply heated up with a bit of ice cream..