Winter is back in London. It’s freezing cold and a few snowflakes are falling here and there. I’m looking forward to taste this bottle of 2006 Badde Nigolosu Tuderi from Sardinia I bought at the Theatre of Wine last night. It’s our favourite wine shop – a lovely selection of organic & low sulphur wines, great tastings and excellent advice. Jason told me he reserved this bottle for me (he IS a good salesman) and so I of course had to buy it. With 15.5% alcohol I expect a bomb but I’m excited to see how it developed with just a little sulphur probably added at bottling. Expect a tasting note later! [here it is]
While I’m waiting for wine o’clock I want to do something with these four brown bananas in the fridge. So that’s going to be banana cake. Bananas just go so well with nuts and a bit of vanilla making a cake as juicy as it should be. Here is how I made it.
Ingredients
250g plain white flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 really ripe bananas
225g caster sugar
175g butter
2 large eggs
1 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
50g pecans
icing sugar for dusting
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (or 350°F)
- Melt the butter and put aside so it can cool
- Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside
- Using a kitchen machine (or a mixer) mix 2 of the bananas with the sugar for a few minutes so you get a nice fluffy banana cream
- Cut the vanilla beans lengthwise and scratch out the vanilla extract with a knife. Or measure one teaspoon of the extract.
- Add vanilla, eggs and the cool-ish butter (it should still be liquid) to the banana cream and mix it in
- Now add the flour-soda-salt mixture and keep the kitchen machine going till it’s all mixed well
- Chop the nuts, smash the left bananas (but leave some texture) and fold them in the batter
- Grease a loaf pan, add the batter and put it in the oven for 75 minutes
- Let it cool for about 10 minutes and then place it on a rack till it’s fully cooled
- Add some icing sugar on the top, slice, serve and eat