Banana Bread with Chocolate and Walnuts
Banana bread is my all time favourite cake that I stir up quite often. It’s perfect for a cosy afternoon tea or as a quick snack. It’s especially handy, if you have some ripe bananas or leftover chocolate lying around and don’t know what to do with them. You don’t even need much sugar for this cake, as the sweetness will come from the ripe bananas and the chocolate. I have some fond memories with this cake, since it was the first cake I mastered on my own. I love the fact that it’s so easy to make. It’s one of those easy peasy recipes that doesn’t need any preps but still delivers maximum flavour. That’s why I recommend anybody who is new to baking to try this recipe. All you need is a mixer, a long backing tin of 30 cm and some patience as you wait for it to bake in the oven.
Ingredients
4 ripe bananas
4 large eggs
400 g all purpose flour
200 g butter or 200 ml olive oil
100 g sugar
150 g chocolate
100 g walnuts
16 g backing powder
8 g vanilla sugar
Pinch of salt
Baking parchment
Small oven proof glass or bowl with water
Get great baking results even with shortcuts
Most of us have little time for cooking and baking because of our busy schedule, work, family and kids or other important things we need to juggle in our daily life. Therefore, any shortcuts in the kitchen are extremely welcome. But often shortcuts can’t be applied to baking. You would fail miserably, if you would leave out certain ingredients or skip certain steps, since baking requires precision in both measurement and timing. Fortunately, this recipe works beautifully, even with the shortcuts! Here are the shortcuts I had in mind:
1. If you don’t have butter at hand, use olive oil instead.
2. Melt your butter in the microwave for 30 to 40 seconds instead of in a pot will save you a lot of time.
3. Unlike most cake recipes, you don’t need to take the traditional route for this one. There is no separating egg yolk and egg white, in order to beat up the egg white to a stiff meringue. In this recipe, you can add the whole egg to the mixture.
Preps
1. If you like to have an extra nutty flavour, I recommend toasting the walnuts ahead, and let it cool down for later.
2. Prepare your baking tin by either lining it out with baking parchment or by buttering it for the cake to come off easier once it’s baked.
3. Break the chocolate into chunks.
4. If you don’t have a steamer oven, place a small oven proof glass of water into your oven and preheat it to 180 °C. This is just a small gesture, but will transport your cake to the next level. By doing so, your cake won’t dry out in the baking process but will stay moist instead.
How to make banana bread
1. Put the melted butter, sugar and vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt in a large bowl and mix till everything is dissolved and merged nicely.
2. Add the eggs and mix again.
5. Next, add the ripe bananas, to the mixture and bled it till it’s smooth.
6. Sift the four into your bowl and mix thoroughly with the mixer.
7. Pour half of the dough into the baking tin.
8. Add half of the walnuts and chocolate to the remaining dough and mix it together.
9. Now, pour the dough with the walnuts and chocolate into the tin.
10. In the last step, drop the rest of the walnuts and chocolate on top of the dough in the tin.
11. Put your baking tin into the oven and bake it at 180 °C for 30 minutes.
12. Turn you oven down to 165 °C and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes.
13. You can check if your cake is fully cooked by sticking a toothpick into the cake. Once it comes out dry your cake is cooked. If it’s still slightly wet, let it cook for a few minutes more.
14. Once the cake is golden brown, it’s done. Take it from the oven and let it to cool.
