BANANA CAKE with walnuts

Using up fruit and veg so as not to waste any is a challenge.  This includes bananas and I'm not always ready to make a cake so lately I have been freezing them at the point where they are just over but still firm enough to peel easily.  I just peel them and pop them in a plastic bag, two at a time, draining off any excess liquid when thawed.  Hence this cake came about because I needed freezer space, we were on a mission to use up frozen food and friends were coming round for apéros.  Why not give them cake as well as savoury nibbles?!

I have made a lot of different banana cakes over the years and there have been some really stunning ones.  In fact the only failure was a recipe using Trex which was, truthfully, grim!  (See here.)  However, I've had my eye on this recipe for a while and decided to give it a go.  The only issue was that it required "4 tablespoons of melted butter" and I wasn't quite sure how to do that - melt some butter and measure out 4 tablespoons - what would you do if there wasn't enough or too much?  Or soften some butter and scoop out 4 tablespoons before melting it?  My butter was quite hard so I googled it and the consensus was that 4 tablespoons was 60 grams so that's what I weighed out and melted and it produced exactly the right amount!

This was an excellent banana cake with a lovely texture and a glossy top.  Very easy to make and definitely a winner. At the time of writing you can see the recipe here and I decorated mine with some walnut halves and banana chips.

Ingredients 

350g peeled ripe bananas, thawed if frozen

180g plain flour

2½ tsp baking powder

60g butter, melted (4 tblsp)

160g soft light brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

50g walnuts, roughly chopped

walnut halves and banana chips to decorate (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Butter a 2lb (900g) loaf tin or use a paper liner.

Mash 2/3 of the bananas to a pulp in a bowl, add the remaining bananas and mash roughly so that you have a few lumps.

Put the eggs, melted butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat with a hand held electric whisk, or a wooden spoon, until pale and creamy.  Sift in the flour and baking powder, add the bananas and fold in until well combined.  Stir in the chopped walnuts evenly.

Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for about an hour.  Cover loosely with foil after 30 minutes to prevent scorching.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Cuts into 10 slices.