Very simple banana loaf

Ingredients

• 4-5 ripe bananas
• 2/3 cup melted butter
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 t vanilla essence
• 1 & 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t ground allspice
• 1/4 t salt

Method

• Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a loaf tin and line the bottom with baking paper.
• In a large bowl, mash the bananas. Add the egg, melted butter and vanilla essence and stir to combine.
• In a second bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and ground allspice.
• Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture in two to three lots, stirring until combined after each addition.
• When all combined, pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for 55-65 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
• Cool in the tin for ten minutes and then transfer onto a rack. Alternatively slather hot loaf with butter as soon as you can touch it and EAT.

When is a mouldering banana a welcome sight? When you need to bake something, that’s when. Banana-based baking is the ultimate transformation from yuck to yum. Very ripe, very brown bananas might be a bit nasty to look at but think of the potential…all of that ripe sweetness and mushiness is the perfect base for tasty treats with excellent texture.

This banana loaf really fits the bill for when you have neglected not just one or two bananas, but most of a bunch. The 4-5 spent bananas required for this may seem a lot but it’s really worth it – they yield a very sweet, fulsome loaf that is also simple to make with a short ingredients list, as the bulk of the bake is banana. It’s really very simple to throw together, and so perfect for a weekend where you realise you have left some bananas forgotten and festering at the bottom of the fruit bowl all week and fancy something sweet.

I really like allspice in this, but if you don’t have that to hand or don’t like it, cinnamon or ground ginger make a great substitute. I usually eat this as is with some butter, but a plain or lemon icing is a nice addition if you fancy. I hope you have some brown bananas at the ready.