Banana Loaf

Now this one makes me smile each time I think of it.  It’s a simple loaf, but I obsessed over it and wanted to get it just right on the first day of my first attempt!  I went to see my friend one afternoon last week.  She is a new mother, and as the weather was cold I thought we could have a girly afternoon in and I offered to make a cake for her over at her house.  The recipe was a standard of eggs, flour, butter, baking powder and baking soda with soft brown sugar, some spices (cinnamon and ginger) and of course bananas.  The butter addition was unusual in that it was melted and was the last ingredient added to the batter.  In a classic sponge, the butter would be combined to the sugar first followed by eggs and dry ingredients. 

My friend had very ripe bananas, close to rotten really.  It added a lovely strong deep banana taste to the loaf.  However her oven was very hot and burned the cake a little at the top.  When I got back home I just couldn’t help myself and simply had to try it again (why not?).  On this second attempt my bananas were quite fresh as I had to buy them from the shop.  I also used brown muscovado sugar.  The result was that the banana taste was much subtler and the brown sugar taste came out much more strongly as an after taste (this is the cake pictured).

What can I say, both cakes were really good – just different.  If I were to make this cake again I would add another 150g or so of bananas if they were fresh.  I am now also intrigued to see what would happen were I to use white sugar in place of the brown.