Saturday going bananas

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]

Banana cake

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (or 350°F)
  2. Melt the butter and put aside so it can cool
  3. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside
  4. 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
  5. Cut the vanilla beans lengthwise and scratch out the vanilla extract with a knife. Or measure one teaspoon of the extract.
  6. Add vanilla, eggs and the cool-ish butter (it should still be liquid) to the banana cream and mix it in
  7. Now add the flour-soda-salt mixture and keep the kitchen machine going till it’s all mixed well
  8. Chop the nuts, smash the left bananas (but leave some texture) and fold them in the batter
  9. Grease a loaf pan, add the batter and put it in the oven for 75 minutes
  10. Let it cool for about 10 minutes and then place it on a rack till it’s fully cooled
  11. Add some icing sugar on the top, slice, serve and eat

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