The recipe for this banana bread is scrawled down on a scrap of paper and kept in a drawer in the kitchen along with another couple of favourite recipes and various packets of tea.  I’ve made this often over the past couple of years but never quite got round to writing it up here.  The recipe has evolved quite a bit over time.  With a demanding one year old to look after I’ve now commandeered my husband to help whenever we feel a need for cake, which is quite often.  Of course I give him all the rubbish jobs like beating the eggs and mashing the bananas.  Does anyone else share my aversion to over ripe bananas?  The smell is overwhelmingly repugnant but thankfully the magic of baking transforms the bananas once in cake form.  I always find banana bread comforting but this version with its bursts of melted chocolate mixed with the bright notes of lemon has become my favourite.  Yesterday we headed out to the park with warm banana cake stashed in my pocket and I snapped a couple of photos of the beautiful colourful autumnal leaves before they disappear. 

Recipe adapted from 101 Cookbooks.

Notes: The original recipe uses a glaze made with icing sugar.  This looks so delicious but since we rarely have icing sugar on hand I tend not to go to the effort.

Cake

200g rice flour

65g ground almonds

125g Demerara sugar

¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

½ teaspoon salt

115g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids) cut into chunks

80ml extra virgin olive oil

2 eggs lightly beaten

3 ripe bananas mashed

60ml plain natural yoghurt, full fat

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Glaze

Juice of one lemon

1 tablespoon Demerara sugar

Directions for the cake:

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4, 180°C, 350°F

Line a loaf tin with baking parchment.

In a large bowl combine the flour, almonds, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, salt and chocolate.

In another bowl combine beaten eggs, olive oil, mashed bananas, yoghurt, lemon zest and vanilla extract.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine until no flour is present.  Pour into your prepared loaf tin and bake for 45-50 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave the cake to cool in the pan for ten minutes before turning out on a rack to cool completely.

For the glaze:

Combine the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan.  Heat on low until the sugar has dissolved.  Once cooled prick holes in the top of the cake and trickle the glaze over.

Snow Rants and Orange Bread

I feel I should have some sort of soup or stew to share today as we woke up to a blanket of snow this morning.  Not enough to be useful, eg. give my husband a day off work, but enough to be inconvenient.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for snow under the right circumstances when it’s pretty and fluffy and we have no commitments other than going out to enjoy it.  But being realistic, mostly I find it a pain.  There were many times on my commute to work in London when I dreaded snow.  It always seems to me that if this country had a transport system that coped with snow then issues such as how to get in to work would “melt” away.  Instead everything grinds to a halt quite literally and you are forced to embark on a journey which will result in freezing toes and hours of wasted time, trudging through snow in your wellington boots or whatever snow worthy attire you have chosen at 6am, getting to the train station packed full of other weary commuters, looking at display boards that make no sense and tell blatant lies about trains that aren’t running.  I once spent two hours crouched on the floor of a train which travelled four miles before spewing its tired and cold bewildered commuters out and then spent another two hours trying to get a train that would get me back to where I’d started.

Anyway to this orange bread! If you are lucky enough to have a snow day then you should make this.  It’s a good reason to light the oven for a little extra warmth while being rewarded for your endeavours by creating something that tastes like sunshine.  I’ve posted about this cake before.  It was a lemon version.  I’m being a total cheat by using oranges this time instead.  Both are incredible.  Follow the recipe and use whatever citrus you have.  You can find the recipe here.