Banana Bread

Also works as a birthday cake.

Banana Bread

This recipe comes from Williams Sonoma online, which can no longer be accessed in the UK or EU due to updated GDPR regulations. I have adapted it slightly to add more of the good stuff, and account for UK ingredient differences.

Ingredients:

85g unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar (200 grams)

3 eggs

2-6 bananas

Buy bananas for this at least a week in advance. They should be brown, spotty, mushy and completely unappetising. I say 2-6 because sizes vary. The initial recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups mashed banana, which is 2-3 large bananas, but not all bananas are that big. Eyeball it, today I used about 5.5 small bananas. They should be about 3 days older than this picture.

120g buttermilk/plain yogurt

In the UK, use plain yogurt. The buttermilk here just isn't the same. Pick the cheapest nastiest low fat yogurt you can find, the kind that pours out and has gross yogurt water floating around on top. Use this gross yogurt water and pour the yogurt so you get the wateriest part of it.

2 cups plain flour (240 grams)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

Optional extras:

1 cup chopped nuts such as pecans or walnuts

This is what the initial recipe calls for, I am personally not a fan of nuts in baking

1 cup dark chocolate chips (160-200 grams, give or take depending on preference for chocolate)

I almost always go for chocolate chips, 2 supermarket sized bags works pretty well.

Instructions:

Preheat an oven to 180˚ C

Grease and flour the pans that you are using

Today I am using an 8in round springform pan, which seems to be the right size, but otherwise a 9 x 5 loaf pan will do, or you can use smaller pans and adjust the cook time to make small loaves. Go with the shape you want.

Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or a handheld mixer, beat together butter and sugar until light and creamy (c. 3 minutes)

Beat in the eggs one at a time

Beat in the mashed bananas

You can use your hands to mash the bananas while they're still in their skins by squeezing them. When you peel them a pungent and sticky banana mush should fall out.

Beat in buttermilk/yogurt

Beat in flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and salt until just combined

The initial recipe suggests you mix these things together before beating them into the rest of the batter. I never have, and it hasn't made one goddamn bit of difference.

By hand, mix in whatever optional extras you're using

Pour into pan(s) and bake until the banana bread passes the clean knife test (until a knife or toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean or with minimal crumbs). Cook time will vary based on oven or size of loaf/loaves. For a 9 x 5 loaf this usually bakes about 50 minutes, for this round cake, about 40 minutes, small loaves might be done in 25 minutes.

You will have to keep an eye on this, but try to avoid opening the oven. If the top looks dark brown very early in the baking, cover the cake loosely in foil to ensure it does not burn on top but remain raw inside.

Below is the batter and bake.

Let cool in pan(s) 15 minutes on a cooling rack, then turn out and allow to cool completely