Well we're still in lockdown! I mean has there been any point within the last 10 months when Manchester hasn't had some form of lockdown restriction imposed upon it?
I have exhausted all takeaway coffee venues, every walking route and have ran out of home decorating options. To relieve my boredom we needed to go all out... It was finally time to learn how to bake!
I, in true Tori style, had injured myself on a walk and couldn't get out to go and scoff all the cakes in sight from our favourite local traders, so I had to resort to very drastic measures and ultimately make my own.
The other half is an incredible baker (goodbye waistline) and I decided to opt for a more healthy option of banana bread... That was until I looked at the ingredients and calories and realised that adding fruit to baked goods does not make it healthy!
I am a complete novice baker and sadly no Mary Berry. However, this is the easiest recipe to follow that even I managed to make an edible banana bread and by edible, I mean ridiculously delicious!
So if you fancy doing a spot of baking to relieve some lockdown boredom, the recipe is as follows:
Ingredients
- 140g Butter - make sure this is softened (I learnt this the hard way)
- 140g Caster Sugar
- 2 large eggs (whisk these together, but not too much)
- 140g self-raising flour
- 2 over ripe bananas (to be mashed together)
- Now for decoration you can use icing sugar and banana chips or chocolate chips. I had neither so just went for a traditional banana bread.
Recipe
Step 1
Pop your oven on to 180'c / 160'c Fan / Gas mark 4 (do make sure you do this first as I didn't and had to wait ages whilst the oven heated up).
Step 2
Place a loaf tin liner in your loaf tin or alternatively grease with butter. Make sure you cover the whole tin to avoid difficulties when getting your baked goods out. I prefer the tin liners as it is so much easier and less mess when cleaning up!
Step 3
Mix your butter and caster sugar together to form a cream. I am convinced I messed this step up to be honest. The consistency should be light and fluffy (definitely recommend watching a youtube video to get it right as this apparently can make or break a good banana bread).
Step 4
Add in your eggs, you want to fold these into your mixture. I will be totally honest here, I made a figure eight pattern, poured some egg in, made the figure eight pattern and repeated until all the egg was gone. This seemed to work perfectly well, but I am sure there is a more professional way haha.
Step 5
Fold in your self-raising flour and mashed banana. If you haven't mashed your banana yet make sure you do. Your mixture should have a cake batter consistency and should be able to drip off the spoon but not be too runny.
Step 6
Pour your mixture into your cake tin. You can then add some banana slices or chocolate chips to melt into the batter as it is cooking. I really wished I would have done this as it would have levelled the whole thing up.
Step 7
Pop in the oven and wait around 30 minutes. It is suggested you then start checking the loaf at 5 minute intervals until cooked and the whole process should take no longer than 50 minutes. I felt our loaf was cooked at 45 so took it out and let it cool for 10 minutes. I recommend you keep a close eye on your loaf as I slightly over cooked it due to waiting the five minute intervals but it still tasted incredible.
And there you have it, you should now have a very easy and tasty banana bread you can enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee!
The loaf is meant to make 10 slices, however we made around 6 thicker ones. If you divide the loaf into 10 slices, each slice should have 268 calories (oooh its a hefty calorie slice). I can confirm that I ate 3 slices in one sitting so don't expect the loaf to hang around for long!
I am ridiculously proud of little ole me for baking such a good banana bread, I'm changing my name to Tori Berry effective immediately!!! I hope this super easy recipe inspires you to beat some lockdown boredom with a bit of baking and please let me know if you try out the recipe!
Until Next Time
T
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This looks really yummy
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