Mini turns 9 next week and I hear from her authoritative voice that cupcakes are SO out. Yes – my friends – the world is finally waking up to the fact that most cupcakes, despite looking incredible, are sickly levitra sales uk sweet and awfully disappointing. Bearing this in mind, Mini has decided her birthday treat for the class will be Birthday Banana Bread but – she advises – it MUST include chocolate chips.
those crucial chocolate chips
Now, as you know, I am a little powerless in my right arm, at least for another week or so. So I set about trying to find a banana bread recipe which doesn’t involve any hand beating or mixing.
And, once I had found one, I bought a big bunch of perfectly ripe bananas.
Only to find that the next morning, there was only ONE lonely banana in the fruit bowl.
Clearly I live with a barrel of monkeys.
So, I bought another bunch but this time some of my curved friends were a little on the green side. And that’s when I learnt how to ripen a banana.
let’s (ethylene) gas those bananas!
All you have to do is place the banana you want to ripen in a paper or plastic bag with an unpeeled apple. The apple emits ethylene gas as it ripens. Trapped inside the bag, the gas accelerates the bananas’ ripening process, allowing me to make this loaf.
Here is the recipe – adjusted to include those chocolate chips:
my magimix does all the hard work
Ingredients
225g self-raising flour
100g butter
150g caster sugar
450g bananas (under lock and key)
½ tsp salt
2 eggs
100g M&S juicy raisons/cranberries
100g chocolate chips
Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Mix all the ingredients (except for the dried fruit and choc chips) in your food processor. When the ingredients are all thoroughly combined, pulse in the dried fruit and choc chips. Spoon the batter mixture into a 1k non-stick loaf tin. Bake for 1/1.5 hrs until the banana bread has risen and is golden-brown on top.
pre monkey invasion
enter monkeys
the new cupcake is BBB (birthday banana bread)
Let’s hope Mini and her friends still consider banana bread to be ‘in’ next year.
