Banana Bread

I love this recipe. It is the way all sad, smushy unloved old bananas should end up. We buy a lot of bananas in this family, Girl is addicted to them and can't possibly start the day with any other fruit in her cereal. We have to time the buying of them to enable madam to get the best ones, not too green and not too squashy. Needless to say we don't have that many over-ripe ones anymore unless I intentionally buy too many. The ones I used today have been rescued from my grans house. She has dementia but can still do most things with the added help from carers who visit her morning and evening. Most days she still manages to catch the bus to visit my grandad in the care home where he has been the last 12 years. When she leaves she always takes some bananas from the fruit bowl in the foyer and puts them in her bag, the staff are used to her now and just let her have them. She ends up with loads of them going all brown in her kitchen so I thought I'd recycle these ones into a cake for her.

Banana Bread

50g/2 oz butter
115g/4 oz golden caster sugar
225g/8 oz self raising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 ripe bananas, mashed
115ml/4 fl oz milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g/2 1/2 oz chopped walnuts (or any nuts, sultanas, dried cranberries or blueberries. Also just as good plain)

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4 ~ 350 F~ 180 C
2. Cream the butter and sugar together
3. Stir in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
4. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
   
5. Pour into an oiled loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes.

The best thing about this recipe is it is so simple. I've made it dozens of times now and Bad Things have never Happened. It doesn't stick, burn or commit any other naughty cake crimes and tastes fantastic. Big thanks go to my friend Bex who shared the recipe with me.