Bangin' Banana Bread

This recipe is a brilliant way to use up those bananas which have been hiding at the back of the fruit bowl instead of going in your school packed lunch!

Rather than taking a squishy banana to school you could take a slice of this scrummy cake and impress your friends.

In our house a whole loaf is consumed in one afternoon!!!

I have made two loaves (see the pictures below) to show one Gluten Free and one normal self raising flour. Both work really well

Ingredients:

3 Ripe or over-ripe Bananas

200g Self Raising Flour (Normal or Gluten Free)

200g Caster Sugar

50g Butter (softened)

1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

1 egg

Sprinkle of Soft brown Sugar

Blueberries for topping (optional)

The above ingredients make a really light fluffy cake like loaf. If you want the bread to be more "bread-like" you can use 200g of Plain Flour (instead of the Self Raising) and also add 1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda and 1/2tsp of Baking Powder.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C

Grease a 22x12x6cm loaf tin and line with baking parchment.

1. Mush (yuck) the bananas in a mixing bowl.

2. Add the flour and caster sugar and gently beat together.

3. Add the butter and egg and beat a little more.

4. Add the vanilla extract and make sure everything is well combined..

5. Carefully tip the batter into the prepared loaf tin and sprinkle over the brown sugar. If you're going to decorate with blueberries push them nearly all the way into the top of the batter to avoid them burning.

6. Carefully place the tin on a baking tray in the middle of the preheated oven.

7. The loaf should be cooked in 50-60 minutes but to check, you can push in a metal skewer and if it pulls out clean the loaf is properly cooked.

8.. Very carefully remove the tin from the oven, place it on a cooling rack and run a palette knife around the edge.

9. After a few minutes you can turn the loaf out and leave it on the cooling rack to cool (if you can wait that long before you eat it).

10. Enjoy sharing or just eat it all yourself... It is really nice toasted with butter spread on top for breakfast.

Enjoy !