Photo: avlxyz / Flickr

Banana and walnut bread is a good way to use up any over-ripe bananas that are sitting in your fruit bowl. This recipe will take half an hour to prepare and about an hour to bake. Besides bananas and walnuts, you will also need some butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, plain cake flour and some baking powder. If you don’t have a savarin mould, you can use a normal loaf tin. Serve the cake with butter or eat it as is.

Ingredients for banana and walnut bread

To serve eight, you will need 150 grams of softened butter (not melted), 150 grams of caster sugar, 3 eggs (at room temperature), 4 ripe bananas (or over-ripe bananas), 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, 80 grams of walnuts, 325 grams of plain cake flour and 10 ml of baking powder.

Method

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius for a savarin mould and 180 degrees for a loaf tin.

Beat your softened butter with an electric beater for about 15 seconds before adding the sugar. Beat the butter and sugar until they are pale and fluffy-light. Break the eggs into a separate bowl and beat them well. Slowly pour the beaten eggs over the creamed butter and sugar while continuously beating on a medium speed.

Using a fork, mash the bananas well. Add the bananas and the vanilla extract to the mixture and incorporate them by using a hand whisk.

Chop up the walnuts in a rough fashion and place them in a separate container. Sift the flour and baking powder into the container and mix the ingredients together. Add these dry ingredients to the banana mix. Use a wooden spoon to incorporate the ingredients.

Once the mixture is mixed and smooth, pour it into a buttered savarin tin or classic 28 cm loaf tin. Level out the top and place the banana and walnut bread into the oven on a baking sheet (on the centre shelf).

Bake for 50 minutes or up to an hour and let the cake cool for 15 minutes in the tin before you turn it out.

Tags: baking