I love a good banana loaf, our family friend Penny used to make it all the time and as a child I fondly remember her bringing us round a loaf that my mum would slather jam on (odd I know but it works!).
One of my best friends Sara introduced me to this cracking chocolate and banana loaf (I'm pretty sure it's Nigel Slater's recipe but I'm giving her full credit here!) a couple of years back when she whipped out a tin with the loveliest and stodginess slice of goodness in after one of our Bushy Park October dog walks and it's the recipe I've been using ever since....
Ingredients...
175g unsalted butter (I used same quantity of vegetable oil as ran out of butter!)
175g sugar (1/2 light muscovado, 1/2 golden caster sugar)
2 free range eggs
175g self raising flour
2 very ripe bananas (the ones I had used yesterday had definitely seen better days!)
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g chocolate chips (I like to use 1/2 dark, 1/2 milk)
Method...
- Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/GAS 3 and line a loaf tin (20cm x 12cm x 5cm)
- Beat the butter and sugar until creamed
- Add the eggs one by one.
- Add the self raising flour until all combined
- Finely chop your bananas
- Gently fold in the bananas, chocolate chips and vanilla extract
- Plop into your tin and pop in the oven for about an hour, an hour twenty or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Transfer to a cooling rack and leave ten minutes before turning out of the tin.
- Leave to cool and slice a big chunk and serve with a lovely big cuppa of your choosing!
I have made this cake using gluten free flour and dairy free chocolate so if you replace the butter for vegetable oil it will be suitable for allergy sufferers too!
So, if you've got any ropey black bananas knocking about most definitely give this a try.
Enjoy!
Nathalie x
