Recipe: Banana & Date Bread

Who doesn’t love a good banana bread recipe? I know it’s not just me who gets to the weekend and all intentions of healthy-eating leap out of the window hand in hand with their good friend will-power. So, I know it can’t just be me who gets to the weekend and spies the browning bananas at the bottom of the fruit bowl with a groan and that’s just because I know how hard it’s going to be to sneak those into the recycling without a small lecture on the life expectancy of fruit (For those wondering, unless it gets up and walks out of the fruit bowl then apparently it’s still edible according to the man of the house… apparently).

Plus to make things worse, or better depending on how you look at things, my previous cravings for dates had left half a bag that were looking at me pitifully every time I opened the cupboard door. It was time to get rid. As a massive fan of banana bread, I knew straight away that a loaf was calling. Despite being reminded that my previous attempt at such a loaf had turned in to a fried disaster thanks to the slathering of butter I added to the pan to ‘prevent sticking’ – in fairness, it didn’t stick – the bananas and I had a date (haha – sorry!). Since it’s been a big week for us food-wise, I thought I’d pull this recipe out from the archives, so here we go.  It went a little something like this…

Makes one large loaf

You will need:

• 2 bananas – the riper the better
• 300g (2 cups) of self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• 125g of dates – pitted and chopped
• 115g (1/2 cup) of caster sugar
• 250ml (1 cup) of milk
• 2 eggs

Recipe:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius
2. Line a medium sized loaf tin (roughly 25cm x 14cm) with baking paper and a very light covering of butter
3. Sieve the flour, bicarb and nutmeg into a large bowl
4. Mix in the sugar and chopped dates
5. In a separate bowl, mash your banana – a few lumps give a lovely surprise in the loaf itself!
6. Add the milk and eggs to the banana and stir well to combine
7. Fold in the dry mixture and pour into your lined tin
8. Bake for about 45 minutes and do the skewer test to check it’s cooked – personally a little undercooked banana loaf is a marvellous thing but each to their own

Once it’s cool, slice and serve with lashings of butter and a healthy knowing gleam in your eye. I’m pretty sure it’s at least one of your five a day… right?!

Let me know if you give it a go!