38 Loaded Banana Loaf

I don’t know about you, but I always end up buying too many bananas. The thing is though, that bananas are only good when fresh, not soft and spotty like a leopard. Seeing spotty, almost black bananas that I forgot to eat in my fruit bowl, used to make me really, really sad. I didn’t want to waste them, obviously. And so, I came up with a plan of making a banana loaf with a twist, loading it with chocolate chunks and all sorts of nuts. Incredibly easy and quick to make.

You can easily whip up this cake loaf in 10minutes, I promise. Its baking time is a bit more, from 45 to 55 minutes, depending on your oven, but the actual work required to make the cake is minimal. You can reduce the sugar, add any nuts you like (my recent version involved peanuts), add white chocolate or no chocolate at all. This cake is very versatile, indeed, and it doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Happy baking!

LOADED BANANA LOAF

INGREDIENTS

for the loaf 
140g butter 
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
160g self-raising flour (or 160g regular flour plus 1tsp baking powder and 1/2tsp salt)
1tsp baking powder
2 very soft and ripe bananas
handful of nuts (I usually use almonds, pecans, walnuts)
handful of chocolate chips or a block of chocolate cut into small pieces

for the icing
1 cup icing sugar
2-3 tbsp sour cream or crème fraîche
juice of 1/2 lemon

HOW TO MAKE?
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a loaf tin with butter.
2. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar (with your electric mixer) until soft and fluffy. Add the eggs, one by one, with a little flour. Now add the remaining flour and baking powder.
3. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas. Once mashed, add them to the eggs, butter and flour mixture.
4. Add the nuts and chocolate and combine them with the mixture. You can just use a wooden spoon to do that.
5. Pour the mixture into the tin and place in the preheated oven.
6. Bake for about 45minutes. Before taking it out from the oven, check if the cake is properly baked using a wooden stick. Sometimes it may take longer than 45 minutes to bake. When the stick comes out clean, your loaf is ready.
7. Let it chill for a bit and then you can decorate it.
8. To make the icing, mix together cream and icing sugar with your electric mixer, until smooth and glossy. If it’s too runny, add some more icing sugar. You can also add a drop of vanilla extract.
9. Decorate the cake with icing and sprinkle with some almonds or nuts. Keep in mind, that the cake should be completely chilled when decorating with icing. Otherwise, the icing will just run off the cake.
10. Serve with a nice cup of tea or coffee. Enjoy!

Smacznego!
aho

Wersja polska, specjalnie dla polskich czytelników:

Ciasto Bananowe Na Bogato