When we moved to Calgary, I was rather devastated to find out that the success I had in making cakes in the UK did not transfer. Basically, the UK is wet, winter or summer there is moisture in the air, we generally cook with gas ovens, and the altitude is pretty much zero.
Calgary is pretty much the opposite in baking terms. Everyone cooks with electric ovens, the atmosphere is pretty much always dry, even when we have 2 foot of snow outside, and we are at pretty high altitude.
My light and airy cakes which rose up and above the top of the pan in the UK barely rose at all in Calgary and frankly were more like frisbees (hard ones).
So you can imagine my joy at dicovering what appears to be somewhat of a North American staple, Banana Loaf. And I found a great little recipe for it too, which, with a few gentle tweaks, has become a favouorite in our house.
You can find the original recipe here http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/ which is just fine as it is, or you can follow my version, or do your own.
I tend to triple the recipe, or at very least double it, as we are never short of bananas in our house. My youngest loves them, as does my oldest, but if she doesn't eat the one I put in her lunch bag, it gets bruised, or horror of horrors, gets brown spots in the skin, and therefore is clearly inedible (at least by the standards of my fussy eater seven year old).
You can chose to use the banana's fresh and mash them in the usual way, or you can freeze them and use them later. For those of you who don't know, freezing bananas pretty much causes them to mash themselves in the skin. When they defrost, they are mush and ooze out in a way children love into your mixing bowl with no mashing required. They also go a rather horrible shade of brown, but, when made into banana loaf, they result in a darker, richer looking loaf than the fresh ones produce.
Ingredients (makes 1 loaf)
3-4 bananas (mashed or defrosted)
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour.
1 tablespoon dark molases
A couple of notes on the above. You can use white sugar, but I find brown better. If you have the same issue I do because of the altitude and dry air, and your sugar dries out, melt your butter and put the sugar in there. The moisture and heat from the butter softens the sugar and you get a paste which is easily mixed in. The original recipe called for 1 full cup sugar and said you could easily reduce to 3/4 cup. I never use more than 3/4 and have occasionally used less. I added the molases, which gives the loaf a darker colour and a slightly stronger taste. Again you can adjust the quanity of that to suit tastes in your family. I have made this with and without the molases and everyone prefers it with, so I don't argue with the majority.
As regards the flour, I have used white, wholewheat, and the kind which looks white(ish) but is actually wholewheat. You can't really tell the difference once its baked, but with kids its good to get the wholewheat in them where you can.
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Put your bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a bowl and beat together, sprinkle over the baking powder and salt and stir through evenly then add the flour.
You should end up with a good gloopy mixture. If you made it with fresh bananas, it will be quite light in colour, darker if made with frozen bananas. Add your molases if you want to at this stage according to taste and how dark you want the loaf.
If you have made mixture for more than one loaf, this is where you should separate it.
I always add stuff to mine. Freyja is incredibly picky and will only eat banana loaf with chocolate chips, Darling Hubbie prefers peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips. I prefer fruit and nuts (though I won't say no to choc chips either, truth be told).Last night I made three, using fresh mashed bananas, so the loaves are relatively light.
The one on the left is the choc chip for Freyja. The middle one is peanut butter chip for my husband. The one on the right is an experiment which I have yet to taste test. Christmas results in left over dried fruit in my larder and I discovered I had half a bag of dried cranberries in the back of my cupboard so I added them (probably around a cup), half a teaspoon of ginger powder and one and a half teaspoons cinnamon. (It turned out pretty good).
Put in prepared tins* and bake for between 50 minutes and an hour (I find 50 minutes does it here in Calgary).Cool (if you have patience and will power) and once cool, slice. It freezes well whole or in slices and is great in lunch boxes. As you can see below, my daughter didn't have patience and a slice was already gone from the choc chip one before I had a chance to take a photo of the finished article.
*A few words to those who are not bakers;
- disposable loaf pans work just as well as the proper ones for this
- spray oil is your friend - don't worry about messing
about with butter and trying to cover your tins with it,
use spray oil, easy, fast and no mess!
- once your tin is sprayed, put a little flour in the tin
and dust the sides with it. It will stick to the oil (or butter)
and let your loaf come out easier. Do the same when
making cakes, but maybe use icing (confectioners) sugar
for white cakes and always use cocoa for chocolate cakes :-)
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