Banana Loaf

I've been suffering from yet another cough and cold recently - just how many of these can one person get! So I've not been eating properly and not wanted to do any cooking at all. 

Starting to feel more human now, so got back out into the kitchen where I found a couple of black bananas.  Best use for these I thought will be a lovely comforting banana loaf.  So I set to with a Nigel Slater recipe.  Now Nigel freqently says that a recipe is a 'guide' or words to that effect - so my slight misunderstanding when following his recipe is not a mistake - but a bit of creative adaptation.

The recipe calls for grinding hazelnuts to add with the flour.  I had a collection of mixed whole nuts that I thought would replace the 'hazelnuts' in the recipe list.  It was only as I was following the 'method',  that I realised the error.  Well what the hell I thought - just chuck them in roughly chopped and see what happens.  The result a delicious banana loaf that even hubby likes (not sure this is a good thing!).

There are big chunks of nuts, banana and chocolate in a lovely moist cake with a slightly crisp top.

The original recipe called for choc chips but I substituted roughly chopped dark chocolate and I think it works better giving a slight bitterness in contrast with all the sweetness.

So the recipe for Terri's Banana Loaf is:

6 oz softened salted butter
6 oz sugar (half light brown, half castor)
2 1/2 oz mixed nuts - roughly chopped
3 eggs
6 oz self raising flour
2 very ripe bananas
vanilla extract
6 oz of good dark chocolate - roughly chopped
a little demerara sugar.

1 - Preheat the oven to 170C
2 - Line a loaf tin (I use paper cases from Lakeland)
3 - Beat the butter and sugars together until they are light, fluffy and coffee coloured - best done with a food mixer.
4 - Slowly beat the eggs in to the butter and sugar mix together with a few drops of vanilla essense
5 - Add the flour and gently fold in.
6 - Peel and chop the bananas - smallish chunks
7 - Fold in the nuts, chocolate and banana chunks
8 - Scoop into the prepared tin - the mix is quite stiff so work it down into the tin and slightly flatten off with a spatula
9 - Sprinkle a little demerara sugar on the top.  Bake for 1 hr to 1 hr 10 mins.  If the loaf starts to get too dark then cover with cooking foil.  It's done when it's springy to the touch and a knife comes out nice and clean.

It is delicious on the day - but as with all banana bakes it gets better if allowed to mature for a day.