Banana bread

There are few things better in life than a good cuppa and thick slice of this delicious banana bread. It tastes great on its own, but it's also lovely smothered with some slightly salted butter. A slice of this also works well when you're short on time for breakfast, just grab a slice and go. It keeps well in an airtight container and tastes even better the next day, although it's unlikely that it will last that long!

Makes 1 loaf (or approximately 20 muffins)

Ingredients

120g unsalted butter

240g dark brown sugar

2 eggs

4 bananas (reserve 5 slices of banana for the top of the cake and mash the rest)

350g plain flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of demerara sugar

Directions

Grease a loaf tin.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/gas mark 4.

Cream together the butter and the sugar.

Mix in the eggs, vanilla and the mashed bananas until well combined.

Fold in the flour, baking powder and salt.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin.

Lay the 5 reserved slices of banana on top of the mixture.

Sprinkle with the demerara sugar.

Bake for 55 minutes (insert a skewer into the middle of the loaf - if it's clean when removed the cake is done, if it has mixture sticking to it then cook the cake for 5 minutes longer).

Allow to cool in the tin.

Remove and store in an airtight container.

You can make banana bread muffins instead by adding all of the banana to the mixture and then simply filling muffin cases 3/4 full, sprinkling each with a little demerara sugar and then baking for approximately 20 minutes.

Calling all chocoholics....

Make a choco-banana bread by adding 100g of chopped chocolate (I prefer dark, but milk works equally well).

Make a double choc-banana bread by also relaxing 25g of flour with 25g of cocoa powder.