Banana Bread
Banana bread surprisingly, is common enough that you could find it right beside the buns and breads you’d find street-side, but there’s nothing like baking your own (plus, the house smells good afterward.).
When we were kids, we used to just flip the pages of random cookbooks that were on the shelf, pick out a recipe and just try it. This recipe is adapted from a kids cookbook I used to have (in fact, my very first cookbook I owned!). This was one that we first tried, partially because we love banana bread, but also partially because it had the word “easy” right beside the recipe (heh). And it’s right, this recipe has never failed us.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of baking soda
4 medium, very ripe, peeled bananas
2/3 cups of sugar
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsps of vanilla extract
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease your loaf pan with butter.
In a medium bowl, using a wooden spoon, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
In a large bowl, smash the bananas with a fork. (It doesn’t have to be so finely mashed, some lumps are ok). Add the sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla and beat with the wooden spoon until well blended. All the flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir until just blended.
Pour and scrape the batter into the loaf pan, spreading it evenly with the wooden spoon. Put the pan in the oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.
Remove the pan from the oven and set it on a rack to cool for another 20 minutes.
Gently run a table knife along the inside edge of the pan to loosen the bread from the sides. Flip the pan over and slip the loaf out onto a cooling rack. Let the loaf sit and cool for another 15 minutes before serving.
