For some reason none of us fancied the bananas in the fruit bowl, and then they went soft and squidgy and we liked them even less so there was only one thing to do, banana tea loaf! I pulled out my good old Be-Ro cookery book and then had the inspiration to add some chocolate flakes (flakes of chocolate, not Cadbury’s Chocolate Flakes) My daughter has a hot chocolate maker which uses real chocolate instead of cocoa or drinking chocolate, and according to her they were past their sell by date and didn’t taste nice, so into the banana tea loaf they went. Then I had another inspiration – instead of doing it in a loaf tin, I would cook it as a tray bake in a shallow pan. Both my inspirations proved to be indeed inspired, and it was so nice that I have no pictures of it to share. There was a slight error on my part, I missed out one of the egg whites – too silly to explain how that happened, but the cake/loaf/tray bake rose beautifully. I also used brown sugar instead of castor sugar I also eschewed my electric beater, and put everything into the mixer and just whizzed it all up – no folding in, or gently stirring!
Chocolate flake banana tea loaf tray bake
- 6 oz self-raising flour with ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda – or just a pinch!
- 3 oz butter
- 6 oz brown sugar
- 2 eggs (or two yolks and one white)
- 1lb of bananas weighed wit their skins on, then peeled and and slightly mashed -a s they’re going in a blender it’s not that important to be really mashy!
- chocolate flakes – or I guess you could use chocolate chips
- put the butter broken into chunks and the sugar into the blender and whizz until really light and fluffy – if the mixture seems stiff add some of the egg to loosen it
- add eggs and flour alternately and whizz
- add the mashed banana
- when everything is really mixed add some of the chocolate flakes and just pulse slightly so they don’t break up
- pour into a lined tray bake tin 10″x8″
- stir in more chocolate flakes – I’m not sure how many, but I didn’t add enough
- bake at 180ºC, 350ºF, gas mark 4 for about 35-40, turning once so it bakes evenly; if it seems to be getting too brown on top, either lightly cover it with tin foil or baking paper, or turn down your oven
- take it out of the tin still on its paper and leave to cool for as long as you can resist it
Lois Elsden 