Banana Bread

When we lived in York and had access to the BBC channels, we liked to curl up on our floral pattern sofa and watch stuff like QI, Antiques Roadshow (I do like old stuff with a history), Homes under the Hammer (again, that's me), but also cooking shows like the brilliant Heston's Feasts and The Delicious Miss Dahl. The first had 'culinary alchemist' Heston Blumenthal (owner of The Fat Duck) prepare all sorts of weird food to different themes, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with a real fountain of chocolate or the 70s with a hovering UFO dessert.

The second was a series by Sophie Dahl, granddaughter of Roald Dahl (and indeed the inspiration for Sophie in The BFG). It is a very refreshing take on a culinary television programme as she includes copious anecdotes about her own life and her love for literature. She wrote a cook book called Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights which I stumbled upon at Waterstones and promtly bought. It has recipes for all the seasons of the year divided in breakfast, lunches and suppers, and concludes with 'puddings' (i.e. 'desserts' for those of us not English, not just mounds of gelatin). The page I've turned to the most after buying the book is page 266 'Banana Bread' where she writes

I used to make banana bread in the fierce winters when I lived in New York and it was too freezing to do anything but bake.

Since it is very very cold in Bergen at the moment I thought I'd share this brilliant banana bread bake with you. It is especially suited for MA students on a well deserved break from that pesty thesis.

75g of soft butter, plus extra for greasing and serving
4 ripe bananas (No green ones! You'll be wanting those going slightly brown.)
200g of soft brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (I use 2 tbls of vanilla sugar since I'm out of extract)
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda/baking soda
1 pinch of salt
170g of flour

Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a bread tin.

Mash the bananas in a bowl and add the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla extract. Mix in the bicarbonate/baking soda, salt and flour. Pour the mixture in the tin and bake for one hour. Remove, cool (only slightly!) and serve with a bit of butter and a cup of tea!

I added some candied orange peel this time. I imagine you could add some cinnamon, cardemom, clove etc. to that these days if you want to Christmas things up a bit.

Bon appétit!