Brown Sugar Banana Bread

Banana bread to me is comfort food. I had a bad time with my tummy a few years ago which meant I had to go off dairy, chocolate, anything fatty, red meat, alcohol, you name it, it hurt me, it had to go. As is my way, I did lots of internet research and this recipe, which I found in an IBS Cookbook was my saviour. Full of things that didn’t make me sick, and tasty too- if I could I’d eat it for breakfast, lunch and tea.

It’s gorgeous straight from the oven with a cup of tea, it’s delicious for dessert, warm with some vanilla icecream and a drizzle of chocolate or caramel sauce.

The recipe is for two loaves so it’s a good one to bring visiting, but it freezes great too.

I often freeze it pre sliced in ziplocs so I can take two slices out at night, wrap them in clingfilm and leave them in the boys’ lunchboxes as a treat.

A very important point: if you want to make this right now, sorry. Unless you have black bananas, or very very spotty ones it’s not going to work out very well. The black bananas have a higher sugar content which work great in the recipe. Help is at hand for the future though, every time there’s a spotty banana in your fruitbowl pop it, in its black spotty skin, into the freezer. Take it out the day before you want to make the banana bread and leave in a bowl in the fridge to defrost. You can add the frozen ones to “fresh” black ones fine.

Brown Sugar Banana Bread
Makes two 2lb loaves.

Ingredients
3.5 cups flour
0.5 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons breadsoda
0.5 teaspoon salt
6 egg whites or 3 whole eggs
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1 1/3 cup light or golden brown sugar (you can reduce this to about 2/3 without compromising taste much, as long as your bananas are very dotty)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
6 dotty/black bananas, mashed.
chopped nuts/chocolate chips/walnuts (walnuts are my favourite, they give a lovely texture, I add a good handful of chopped walnuts and 50g dark chocolate chips for the ultimate banana bread )

Preheat oven to 180C

Sift the flour, baking powder, breadsoda and salt into a large bowl then mix them gently until they well combined.

Mash the bananas with a fork in the bowl of your mixer. Add the eggs, sunflower oil, sugar, vanilla extract into a mixer bowl and mix with the whisk attachment until creamy.

Add the dry ingredients to wet and with using a few heavy strokes mix together.

At this stage you can add chocolate chips, walnuts, chopped mixed nuts etc to taste.

Pour into greased non-stick loaf tins adorn with some walnuts on top if you like and bake for 40 minutes or
until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf
comes out clean. Remove from tin and cool on a wire rack.

Recipe doubles or triples easily, and extra loaves freeze well.

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