banana bread

Since moving into the new flat, weekends have been pretty busy - we've not really got very far with unpacking and now that we're much closer to friends and the centre of London, I mostly want to go out and do stuff. However, last weekend was, what I would call, a rather domesticated one - we did some tidying around the flat (unpacked a few more boxes), Mitch watched the football and I baked a cake and did some sewing. And it was perfect. I'll share my sewing (hexagon paper piecing in case you were wondering) at some point but for now, here's the Banana Bread recipe...

10 oz/ 285 g flour

tsp bakingg soda

a pinch of salt

8 oz / 225g sugar

4 oz / 110g butter

4 ripe bananas (mashed)

2 eggs

3 fl oz / 85ml buttermilk (or semi-skimmed milk mixed with a tsp and a half of lemon juice)

Preheat your oven at 180 degrees. Grease a 20 x 12.5cm / 5 x 8 inch loaf tin and line with baking parchment.

Measure out the flour, baking soda and salt. Combine and set aside.

Cream together the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl. Add the bananas, eggs, vanilla essence and buttermilk/milk and lemon mix.

Gradually fold in the flour mix until nicely combined. Pour into the tin and bake at 180 degrees for an hour. (First bakes in new ovens are always a bit trial and error and an hour didn't turn out to be enough for mine. I turned the heat down to 150 after an hour and 10 mins. The cake ended up taking about an hour and a half!)

Once baked remove from the oven and set aside to cool (but actually, it's best eaten a little bit warm). Perfect with a cup of tea on a Sunday evening :)