Banana Nut Bread

At the end of the week, I often end up with at least a couple overripe bananas and I usually make one of two things with them – ‘Unni appams’, which are steamed banana muffins or ‘banana nut bread’, which is a cake with bananas and walnuts.  Sometimes I also add other dried fruits to it like dried cherries or dried cranberries in addition to walnuts.  I have also tried replacing part of the flour with whole wheat flour and it still tastes pretty good.  Since I make this so often and my kids usually have this as a snack after-school , I have also reduced the quantity of sugar in this recipe from the original recipe that  I found in a magazine long ago.

You can also watch my video of this recipe – see link at the bottom

So for making this bread, you will need a 9 inch loaf pan or a 8 inch square baking tin.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour 1  1/2 cups
2 ripe medium size bananas
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter, softened at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup milk
2 tsp lime/lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped finely
1/4 cup dried cranberries or cherries  chopped finely(optional)

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350 deg C.  Grease the pan with butter and also dust with some flour and keep aside.

Take a bowl or a plate and mix the flour, baking powder and baking soda well.

In a medium size mixing bowl, take the butter (that has already been softened) and add the sugar.  With a hand mixer (or any other mixer) mix the butter and sugar well. Slowly add one egg at a time and again keep mixing.  Then add the bananas and again mix till its nicely mashed and blended. Then add the milk and the lime juice. Now slowly add the flour mix 1/2 a cup at a time and keep mixing.  Add the vanilla essence and mix again.

Lastly, add the chopped walnuts and the chopped cranberries or cherries(if adding) and mix by hand slowly. Now pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake in the oven at 350 deg C for about 35-40 minutes. Keep checking after 25 minutes (since oven times vary depending on the type of pan used etc.) When a knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean, then you know its done. at this point, even the sides and top of the cake should look nice dark brown.

After taking the cake out of the oven, let cool for about 5 minutes and then just scrape the sides of the pan with a knife and turn the pan upside down onto a plate to get it out.  Slice it while warm and eat with a nice warm cup of tea or coffee.

Notes:

Make sure the walnuts are chopped fine but not too powdery. they should be a small size such that you are able to get nice slices of the cake.