A Half Decent Banana Bread

My son is still insistent that I cook with him on a regular basis, honestly I don’t know why he still bothers with me. A classic case of the journey being more important than the outcome obviously. But I mean bless him I have made him cry countless times thanks to my bad baking.

This week he wanted to make a big cake, I had some bananas going brown in the fruit bowl and you know how I feel about my fruit surfeit… so Banana Bread it was!

I found a fairly easy looking recipe online, but this also used plain flour and after my hideous sunken cakes from last week I decided to add absolutely LOADS of baking powder, I mean at least three spoonfuls and then a little bit more. No, this banana baby was rising up out of that tin. (Unlike my previous attempt at a loaf, oh and this one too)

Everything was going well until I had to add some lemon juice to some milk before adding to eggs and butter. Was it meant to curdle like this?
I’m not sure.
I quickly added it to the flour mix and then the bananas. It soon soaked all that bitty liquid up no worries!

I had quite a bit of mixture left so after pouring halfway into my greased tin I decided to make some little tiny cupcakes with the rest.
I popped a glace cherry into each case, not letting my boy see me do it so it would be a little surprise for him:
The loaf cooked for an HOUR while I hopped around nervously.
Thankfully a fairly decent loaf came out of the oven and some cute little cakes too (that only took fifteen mins):
Look! It has risen, it looks almost real.
AND it came out of the tin ok, no sticking at all (but then I had used vegetable oil to grease the tin and loads of that too)
It was a little dense and not that sweet and seems to still be a bit damp (this is three days ago now).

But the little cakes worked out quite well, although my son declared he didn’t like cherries ‘hidden on the inside’. Who knew?

Tags: Baking, Family, Puddings, Sweet, Veg Box