We had a surfeit of bananas, buying some more before we finished the ones we already had. No problem,, banana tea bread! I took out my little recipe book and found the recipe… I read it through and looked at it bemused… I do make a lot of cakes and there was something which didn’t seem right… for 1 pound of ripe bananas, 8 oz self-raising flour, baking powder, 3 oz butter, 2 eggs… and then 6 oz sugar – 6 – six – SIX – Really, did they mean that? With all those sweet bananas? Good heavens!!
This is what I actually did:
- 1 pound of ripe bananas, mashed
- 8 oz self-raising flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ oz salt
- 3 oz butter
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 4 oz brown sugar
- 4 oz walnuts (or nuts of your choice – I used sunflower seeds and linseeds)
- cream butter and sugar
- mix in eggs and flour (with baking powder and salt)| alternately
- stir in bananas and mix real well
- pour into a loaf tin and cook for about 1¼ hours at gas mark 4, 180º C, 360º F
I suppose instruction 5 should be ‘leave to cool’… husband and son couldn’t wait and had it warm with cream as pudding! I think I could have used 3 oz of sugar instead and definitely cooked it for another quarter of an hour, possibly lowering the temperature slightly.
Even so, it tastes jolly good!
Lois Elsden 