The Instagram Banana Bread

Banana bread, the cake that deceives legions with its supposed healthy facade. I love a good banana bread or cake, and whipping one up also takes almost no time. I made a few loaves on Sunday morning for a friend who had ordered some off me, and my banana-bread obsessed husband begged for one for the house. So I did. Cos I am obliging, and also addicted to baking.

And I had 2 leftover extremely brown and spotty bananas that needed to be used.

I’ll share the recipe here, and won’t bore you guys with stories and tips and other nonsense most blogs peddle to hit a word limit.

Banana Bread recipe

250g soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 ripe bananas
300g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
150g butter, melted

Preheat oven to 180C/fan, grease and line a 9×4″ loaf baking tin with parchment paper
Beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla bean paste in the bowl of a large stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Let it go on til the eggs gain some volume.
Then don’t bother with mashing up your bananas beforehand, cos that’s just a bowl and fork that you need to wash later, if your bananas are ripe enough, they’ll work here: just break off chunks and toss them into the mix as the paddle is going. Beat this for 30 seconds or so after you’ve added both bananas.
Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt to the bowl and beat again with the paddle just until all the dry ingredients have incorporated (no dry pockets)
Put the mixer on its lowest setting and trickle in the melted butter, once it’s all mixed, increase the speed to medium-high and beat again for about 30 seconds.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin, if you’re feeling decorative and have a banana to spare, slice one down the middle lengthwise and place them on top of the batter. Sprinkle some brown sugar on top, and bake for 40-50 minutes. Remove when a skewer inserted through the top at an angle comes out clean (or there are only a few dry crumbs on there). Let the banana bread cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove onto a wire rack to cool completely.