Wendy Hays

With the price of fruits and vegetables sky rocketing, many of us are committed to using every skerrick of fresh produce that we buy.

Bananas seem to be one of the few fruits that have not increased in price considerably over the past few months.

This month’s recipe is a good one for using bananas which are overripe and may be going a little brown.

It is also a good excuse for eating what is essentially a cake for breakfast!

I use a stick blender to blitz the last five ingredients of the recipe together before mixing into the dry ingredients.

Slices of banana bread freeze beautifully. They can be warmed in the microwave or toasted then topped with ricotta cheese, fresh banana and drizzled with a little honey for a breakfast treat.

Banana Bread

Ingredients

• 2 C self- raising flour

• ¼ ts salt

• 1 ts ground cinnamon

• ½ C brown sugar

• 2 eggs – lightly beaten

• 4 very ripe bananas – well mashed

• 125 g butter – melted and cooled

• 1/3 C milk

• 1 ts vanilla essence

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Grease and line a loaf pan with baking paper.

3. Sift the flour, salt and cinnamon into a large bowl and add the brown sugar.

4. In a large jug or bowl, combine the eggs, mashed banana, milk and vanilla.

5. Using a metal spoon, gently mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Do not over mix.

6. Pour into pan, smoothing the top.

7. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour until cooked when tested with a skewer.

8. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

9. Serve sliced with butter or a topping of your choice.