Banana bread

This cake-like banana bread will stay moist for days. Serve thickly sliced with a dusting of icing sugar, or wrap in foil and warm gently in the oven before slicing and serving with fresh banana for weekend breakfast

Ingredients
Feeds 6. Takes 1 hour 20 mins.


125g butter
175g unrefined soft brown sugar, eg, light muscovado
2 eggs
280g plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
125ml milk
3 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1tsp vanilla extract
75g walnuts, chopped

Heat oven to 180C/Gas mark 4. Lightly oil a 25cm x 11cm (10in x 4½in) loaf tin.

Cream butter and sugar together in a food processor or with electric beaters, until smooth. Add one egg and beat well, add the second and continue to beat well. Sift in half the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and salt, and mix well. Mix in the milk, then the remaining flour.

Mash the bananas and then fold them in to the mixture with the vanilla extract and walnuts. Then tip the mixture into the loaf tin and level the top with a spatula.

Bake for around one hour until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean and not sticky. Cover the top with foil if it starts to brown too quickly.

Allow to cool in the tin for at least 20 minutes before turning out. To serve, cut into thick slices and serve warm or at room temperature.