deVOL Recipes: Zoë’s Banana Bread

13th June 2016

By Collette Black

Zoë claims to be a terrible baker, but this banana bread was the most delicious moist loaf of yumminess you could ever imagine. It even had some cheeky rum soaked sultanas, perfect for a little afternoon treat in our London showroom last Friday, although I would happily tuck into this any day of the week! So if you have some old bananas lying around that are looking a bit passed their best, don’t throw them away, pop the oven on, get your cake tin out and try this super easy bake…

zoesbananabread-2

 

B A N A N A   B R E A D

A   N O T E   F R O M   Z  O Ë : 

My mum is so so so good at cooking, but when it comes to baking she’s not quite so good… growing up we would always try and bake cupcakes or birthday cakes together and for some reason they would always turn out terribly! They’d be super dry or they wouldn’t rise or they would just taste really bad. The only recipe we could ever get right was Nigella Lawson’s Banana Bread, I don’t know why, but whenever we baked this it would turn out soooo good. So I guess this must be a pretty fool proof recipe, even if you think you’re rubbish at baking like my mum and I, give this one a go and it might just turn out to be the best thing you’ve ever baked.

 

I N G R E D I E N T S

75ml of dark rum or bourbon, or you could use a fruit juice if you want to keep it clean!

100g sultanas

175g plain floor

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

150g caster sugar

125g unsalted butter, melted

2 largeish eggs

4 smallish bananas, make sure they’re really really ripe and mash them up

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

M E T H O D

First off pop your sultanas and rum into a saucepan and bring to the boil, take them off the heat, cover them up and leave them to soak up all of the alcohol while you get on with the rest of the cake… the longer you leave them the better. Next you need to preheat your oven to 170 degrees so it’s at the perfect temperature for your cake. Put your flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda and salt into a bowl and combine all of the ingredients really well, you can use your hands or a wooden spoon. Now you’re going to need a large bowl, in here beat your melted butter and sugar until it’s all blended and there’s no sugary lumps. Next beat in your eggs, be sure to do this one egg at a time, and then the mashed up bananas. Now you need to drain your sultanas so there’s no excess rum, they should be plump and juicy and super yummy by now. Add the sultanas and vanilla extract to your sugary buttery bananary mixture and mix well. Now add your flour mixture a bit at a time, stirring really well after each bit to avoid any lumps. Line your loaf tin with baking paper, it doesn’t need to super neat, and scrape all of your mixture into the tin. Bake in the oven for about 1 – 1 1/4 hours.