As sometimes happens, I have started a collection of manky bananas, which have been lurking in my lunch bag and in the fruit bowl. They went all motley and smelly, and there was nothing for it but to bake banana bread. There really is no other use for them!
So I had a nose around to see what sort of recipe took my fancy, and ended up making something up. The basic recipe is from this one at River Cottage and I added some other spices and a squeeze of honey to liven it up even more. It smelled lovely while it is baking, with all the chai inspired spices. It cuts really nicely and has a quite fresh taste to it which surprised me. I think it may be the cardomom. Definitely a bit more exciting than plain banana bread though, and I will be making it again.
Ingredients
- 5 cardamom pods (peel off the skin and grind up the seeds using a pestle and mortar)
- quarter teaspoon of ground ginger
- quarter teaspoon of nutmeg
- quarter teaspoon of cinnamon
- quarter teaspoon of all spice
- 250g self-raising flour (I ended up using some wholemeal flour and baking powder as a substitute)
- 100g margarine
- 125g brown sugar
- 100g chocolate chips
- 2 ripe bananas (about 250g, peeled weight)
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- quarter teaspoon or there abouts of honey
Recipe
- Line your loaf baking tin (my mum gave me some paper loaf tin liners which
save a huge amount of faff and preheat the oven to 180C. - Mix the flour, all of the spices and margarine in a large mixing bowl, until the mixture resembles medium breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and chocolate chips and mix. Make a well in the centre.
- Mash the bananas and add the egg and blend together, then pour into the well in the dry ingredients. Mix together and then beat until the mixture is thoroughly combined.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin.
- Bake for about 45 minutes until well risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Take the cake out of the tin and leave to cool on a rack.
