Banana bread is an old favourite which we all have enjoyed as children. Now with the pandemic on, I have gone back to baking, which I did while the boys were growing, with their huge appetites and our very limited finances. If there were some over ripe bananas, I made them into Fritters or Banana bread which they polished off. Strangely those bananas which they refused to eat were fine in another avatar.All the faces made at the overripe fruit vanished when I fried or baked them!
Banana bread loaf chopped up and ready to be polished off
I love walnuts in any form and adding them in Banana Bread, gives the slice a delightful crunch. Dad always bought wonderful Kashmiri walnuts for us as kids in New Delhi and our Christmas stockings always had to have at least a dozen of them, which we crushed open and savoured.
Quick energy boosters for the boys who were triathletes.
Here’s my easy peasy recipe which has stood me in good stead over the years. It’s sure fire like all the recipes I have perfected making it multiple times, through the boys growing years.
40 minutes in my old perfect Racold which I will never sell
Recipe:
Ingre:
2 cups maida ( I love the cup measure-- no need of weighing)
1 tspn baking powder
¼ tspn salt
½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
2 ½ cups ripe and mashed bananas
1 tbsp chopped walnuts
Method:
Heat oven to 160 degrees, while getting the mix ready.
Sieve flour, baking powder and salt. In a bowl cream butter, sugar, stir in eggs and mashed bananas with walnuts. Then stir in the flour in two parts and check consistency. If too thick add milk and thin slightly.
Oil baking pan and pour mix in.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 40 minutes or till it shrinks from the side or the pick comes out clean. Switch off the oven and remove top cover inside and let the loaf brown slightly. Leave to cool and then slice with a sharp knife.
My tweaks: 1) I cut the sugar down to less than ½ from ¾ cup.
2) Slightly over- ripe bananas are very sweet anyway.
3) Freshly bought maida always tastes better.
4) Use extra walnuts if you like, but chop them up before mixing in.
