MIKEY BELL

This is a banana bread recipe.

I tried desperately to write more, but that’s the top and bottom of this headnote.

I started writing quite poetically about it first, lamenting on the old ‘I always have bananas in the house and sometimes I let one go brown so that I can make banana bread,’ but you know what? There isn’t anything I can write about how a banana bread comes into my life that a food writer hasn’t already written before.

I even thought of taking it in a Covid-trigger route, but then stopped myself. We’re past making jokes about the existence of banana bread, I feel, so I just wanted to break the fourth wall a little bit and say I’m publishing this recipe because it’s just a really, really solid banana bread recipe that I love, use all the time every time, and I think you will too.

Moist from sunflower oil, super banana forward, gently but thoughtfully spiced – it has everything.

Except nuts or chocolate or other bits of nonsense. They absolutely have their place in someone else’s banana bread, but not mine, I’m afraid. I like the crumb soft and close but not heavy, a bronzed crust that doesn’t go hard, that slices cleanly and keeps well.

That’s all banana bread needs to be.

If you absolutely must embellish, I have some thoughts:

Chocolate – if you must add it, keep it at about 100g of dark, salty chocolate and chop it with a knife so that there are both shards and rubble. Anything more will overwhelm, I think. 

Cocoa powder – meh, but if you must, I’d advise on about 50g and reduce your flour down to 130g and add 1 tbs of milk to the batter just to loosen it.

Nuts – I’d suggest 100g walnuts or pecans but toast them first, bash them slightly, and fold into the batter at the very end, in which case a tablespoon extra of oil or mashed banana will help.

Spices – I need the cardamom in it. There’s a sweetness to banana bread that can often bordered on flavour flabbiness, is all I can describe it, so I need a smoky, earthy toastiness to it. This could also be cinnamon or a little nutmeg in a small amount. I have also made this recipe with a teaspoon of espresso powder which is very good, and not noticeably coffee heavy, but a nice welcome addition of bitterness to counter the sweetness.

That’s all.

I’ve desperately tried not to philosophise or romanticise banana bread here. 

We know what it’s for, we know why we make it, and we definitely kjnow what happens when we do.

We eat it, and we love it, and we share it, and the cycle of banana bread continues forever.

And that’s the top and bottom of it really, thank God.

Makes 1 loaf – serves 8 – 10 (or 2 very happily over a few days)

250g (approx. 3) bananas – ripened to the point of being brown 

150ml flavourless oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs 

70g caster sugar

70g soft brown sugar

180g plain flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 

½ teaspoon ground cardamom 

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C and line a standard sized loaf tin with baking paper. 
2. In a bowl, mash up the bananas and then pour in the oil, vanilla extract, crack in the eggs, and tip in the sugars. 
3. Mix these together until they form a sloppy batter that’s well combined.
4. Add the flour, bicarb, and cardamom with a pinch of salt, and fold together until just about combined, but stop as soon as there are no visible streaks or clumps of flour.
5. Pour into the prepared loaf tin and slip into the oven for about 55 – 60 minutes, checking at the 55 mark, until risen, deeply golden, and a skewer can come out mostly clean with just a few little damp crumbs.
6. Let it rest for a bit in its tin before removing, allowing to cool, and then slicing. Covered at room temperature, it will keep well for about 2 – 3 days but it could last a few days longer wrapped well in the fridge. It also freezes beautifully, but I’d slice it first and then freeze, defrosting at room temperature,peratuyre or even toasting straight from frozen.