Banana bread brilliance
ON a recent trip to Australia we were intrigued to see almost every cafe had their own version of banana bread.
It became quite a ritual each morning to sample a different banana bread at a different cafe. We felt we were becoming connoisseurs.
Once home again I began to experiment with various versions.
There are many recipes for this moist cakelike banana bread — however I wanted one with modest amounts of butter and sugar and masses of bananas. We ate a lot of my banana concoctions and several still remain in the freezer, all delicious but not quite perfect. And last week I was successful. I finally baked the banana bread I wanted.
As I perused the recipe books I was fascinated to see how diverse the recipes were. One called for 500g sugar (about 2 cups) which is an alarming amount. However, as I began to experiment I was delighted to note that the more I reduced the sugar, the more pronounced the banana flavour became. The amount of butter varied, too, but not so much —125g was the usual amount called for.
This is a very versatile recipe — baked in a loaf tin it becomes banana bread and is delicious toasted (but I never, ever butter it). It can be cooked in a 21cm round cake tin and served as a cake either just as it is or iced with lemon icing. And spoonfuls of the batter baked in muffin tins make scrumptious muffins. Cooking times will need to be adjusted to suit.
Choose very ripe, sweet, soft, fruity, bananas for this recipe. Very ripe bananas can be kept in the fridge or the freezer until you have enough to make the banana bread. Although the skins turn black and look unappetising, the fruit inside is unaffected by the cold. One local supermarket sells ‘‘salad bananas’’ — very ripe and just perfect for banana bread.