Baking for Beginners: Banana Loaf

I love this recipe - it is another one of those ones that always impresses your friends with your super baking skills but is secretly very quick and simple to make. True domestic sluttery style!

It also has the added bonus of being a great way to use up the manky old bananas in the fruit bowl that no-one wants to touch anymore. Believe me, the browner the bananas the better it will be, well unless the fruit flies have settled in and then I'm afraid the bin *is* the only place for them!

I like to add walnuts to the banana loaf but the recipe works just as well without so they can easily be omitted. I have also tried it with little chunks of marzipan which was very tasty too.

You will need:

• 115g butter
• 170g caster sugar
• 225g Self Raising Flour
• 2 eggs
• 115g chopped walnuts (optional)
• 2 large/3 medium bananas

Make it!

1. Heat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin. You can get some fancy pant loaf tin liners here if you want to look super professional!

2. Mash the bananas in a bowl and set aside.

3. In a separate bowl cream your butter and sugar. Once it is nice and fluffy beat in you eggs.

4. Mix in the bananas, and the walnuts if you are using them and then stir in the sifted flour.

5. Pour your mixture into the loaf tin and whack it in the oven. Bake the loaf for 40 minutes and then lower the oven temperature to 150C/300F/Gas 2 and bake for a further 30 minutes.

Flickr image from Dichohecho's photostream.