Pecan & Banana Loaf

Tweet

Bananas!

I used to play in a band - where I met my boyfriend and the lovely Jane and Andy. There was a song that had a strange stop in it - and the only way we could all come back in at the right time was for Jane to sing the word - Bananas! Then it became everyone's favourite part of the song - good memories!

Ingredients

6 oz softened butter 

6oz golden caster sugar 

3 eggs 

5oz of self raising flour 

3oz ground almonds 

½ tsp baking powder 

100ml/3.5 fl oz milk 

2 small really ripe bananas

2oz pecan nuts – chopped

Pre-heat your oven to 160c/Gas Mark 3. Grease and line a 2lb/900g loaf tin.

To make the loaf batter simply lob all the ingredients into your trusty vintage Kenwood Chef (Did I mention I was given a lovely old Kenwood Kitchen Chef from my parents friends?)

Whisk together until you get a lovely batter. Then lob this into your loaf tin.

Lob this into the oven for 45-50 minutes.

Then lob into your face – after a modest amount of cooling on a wrack. Yummy 

You could always add some icing or frosting if you like – but I thought this was perfectly sweet light and spongy – maybe next time another banana.

This picture is silly and I love it! It's Friday let's all be silly

Banana and Pecan Bran Muffins

Tweet

Breakfast of Champions

Lucy bought me these coloured silicone muffin cases for my birthday, so I decided to test them out! This is the best muffin recipe ever: really easy and you don't need to many rich ingredients. There is no butter in them so they are cheap, too. You can substitute the banana and pecan for whatever takes your fancy. I have done marzipan and cherry, apple and cinnamon, blueberry, chocolate buttons, etc etc etc. In may we did carrot cake muffins with lovely cream cheese icing, its all the same basic recipe. However, these were particularly good for breakfast.

190 g Self Raising flour
150 g Sugar
pinch salt tsp
baking powder
80ml Vegetable oil
1 egg
80 ml milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 ripe Banana

1 handfull pecan nuts

1 double handfull of bran or wheatgerm

for icing

1 cup icing sugar

tbsp water

(I know the measurements are a bit mad, but don't worry, it doesn't need to be exact)

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the banana, mushed a bit and broken into little bits. add all the wet ingredients. stir until everything is mixed in. Voila!

Seriously, thats it!

Preheat oven to gas 6, about 250 degrees. Line a muffin/bun tray with paper cases (i'm using the lovely new silicone ones here), spoon in the mixture until its about 3/4 of the way filling each case. bake for 15-20 mins or until nice and golden.

Mix a tiny amount of water into the icing sugar, and when the muffins are cold, drizzle the icing over them.