Everyone loves Banana Bread!

Now that I'm actively thinking about it I realise how often I have conversations about food. I went to see Julia today. She is back from her skiing holiday in Switzerland and had one last day of dossing before going back to work tomorrow. As is our routine on cold days we curled up on the sofa with a duvet and cups of tea and talked about....food! Then, when Vikki came home we had a blow-by-blow account of her day from weetabix to little pots of hummous. I just had time for a bit of hazlenut swiss chocolate before I had to scoot off to yoga. Yes, I am persistent in my pursuit of a love for yoga. This is 2010's attempt - 'fitness yoga' at the sports village. Actually, not so bad. Anyway, before I left Julia's she made a comment about banana bread which kept me distracted from the pain of an extended warrior pose. I haven't had banana bread in ages and everyone loves Banana Bread!

Monday's are great days because Andrew and I have a routine (or, at least he does!). He always works from 2pm till midnight on a Monday, meaning that he cooks himself a packed-dinner at lunchtime. Today he threw together a stir-fry with chicken thighs and the various vegetables that were lurking in the fridge. A packed dinner for Andrew means an easy tea for Bronia! A wee bowl of stir-fry and rice. Job done! Thus freeing up the rest of the evening for baking a batch of banana bread (oooh look she does alliteration now).

Into the kitchen, on and then off with radio 4 (as a rather disturbing programme on child sacrafice in Ugana failed to set the right scene for Banana Bread creation) and out with the cook books. I made a bee-line straight for Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam and happily found what I was looking for. Mary Berry was also given her turn and she suggested a Banana and Honey Teabread. Armed with these two possibilities I braved a look in my baking cupboard.

Now this probably deserves some explanation. I live with boys so having a 'baking cupboard' is not a high priority in our space-limited kitchen. To keep me happy (and bribed with promises of lovely baked goodies) they cleared one shelf in a cupboard. This means that my baking cupboard is over-stuffed causing dis-organistion and a high risk of contents tumbling onto my head - I was coshed rather nicely with a jar of cinnamon before christmas. Tonight, however, success. I decided that. with a little imagination, I could manage a close-approximation of Tessa's recipe which is more cake-like than Mary Berry's tea-bread:

3 mashed BANANAS
125g BUTTER
125g LIGHT BROWN SUGAR (Tessa says 180g of dark brown but I'm limited by the contents of my cupboard)
2 EGGS, beaten
1 teaspoon VANILLA EXTRACT
1 teaspoon CINNAMON
Tiny pinch of GROUND CLOVES (my addition)
pinch salt
225g of PLAIN FLOUR (literally, all the flour I have in the cupboard!) and a tablespoon of COCOA POWDER which brings me up to the 250g that Tessa calls for.
teaspoon of BAKING POWDER
teaspoon of BICARB OF SODA
3 tablespoons of WARM MILK

The method is simple - at least I'm sure it is in Tessa's kitchen. I had to begin, rather disgustingly, by picking toast crumbs out of my butter. Andrew and Oliver clearly failing, again, to distinguish between 'stork' and 'I can't believe it's not butter'. Anyway, that task accomplished I proceeded to cream the butter and the sugar until dark and fluffy. Then, I stirred in the mashed banana. I love banana bread because there are none of the worries about curdling that accompany usual cake baking. I then mixed in the eggs, vanilla extract, cinammon and cloves. Once thoroughly mixed (and looking particularly lumpy and disgusting) I seived in the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt and stirred vigorously. The horrid, lumpy, curdly mix then turned a gorgeous caramel brown and became much smoother. One last addition of the bicarb mixed into the warm milk and I was done. Then, however, I was faced with a problem - I don't have a big enough loaf tin! Muffin tray to the rescue to turn my left-over banana bread mix into banana muffins.
These went into the oven at 180. Tessa suggests 50 minutes (and I guessed around half an hour or so for the muffins). After this time the top should be crispy, she claims, and a skewer should come out clean. Unfortunately, I have very little patience and may have jumped the gun ever so slightly. Still, my banana bread/cake looks pretty great, if slightly squishier than it should be and it smells wonderful. It tastes pretty fine too, and I should know seen as I ate all the muffins already. Oops. I think Oliver might be disappointed though as he wanted to have banana bread for breakfast and this is definitely more cake than bread. Still, who am I to judge? Banana cake for breakfast all round!