Banana and raisin loaf

If you are a regular follower of my blog you will know that I just spent a day in Paris with a couple of friends. We had a brilliant day and when we weren’t climbing or descending steps, or on a train of some description, we were just happy to be wandering around, admiring the shops without feeling the need to actually go in them (apart from lunch, of course). I’m not a big shopper and luckily neither are Frin or Vana, but it would be difficult to not be impressed by the standard of some of the window displays in Paris, and the boulangeries and patisseries are no exception. An Eiffel Tower made out of macarons, anyone?

Terrible photo, but you get the idea…

So today I was planning to make macarons, particularly as I have even been on a course to make them and still haven’t made them at home. But then life got in the way, and there were three very over-ripe bananas sitting in the fruit bowl, just begging to be used. So instead of macarons, I made banana loaf. You can never have too many banana loaf recipes and the easier they are the better. Banana loaf is a great standby cake and freezes well. Instead of putting over-ripe bananas in the freezer and forgetting to use them, I have started baking the banana loaf and putting that in the freezer instead.

Easy banana and raisin loaf

This recipe uses spelt wholemeal flour and SR flour, but if you don’t have spelt you can use wheat flour, and if you don’t have wholemeal you can just use SR flour and omit the baking powder. You could of course also use both white and wholemeal spelt flour but you would then need a teaspoon of baking powder.

Recipe

Ingredients

125g SR flour

100g wholemeal spelt flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

100g butter or margarine

100g soft brown sugar

150g raisins

2 eggs, beaten

3 ripe bananas, mashed

Method

Grease a 2lb loaf tin. Line as well if necessary.

Set the oven to 180°C.

Put the flours and baking powder into a large mixing bowl.

Rub in the butter or margarine.

Add the sugar and raisins and mix.

Add the beaten eggs and mashed bananas and mix well.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for around 1 hour, until well risen and firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Check after about 45 minutes and cover with aluminium foil for the rest of the baking time if the loaf is browning too quickly.

Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack.

Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes

And of course my next post will be all about Paris and macarons. Or at least that’s my plan… I’m hoping they will look something like this:

French Macarons

Categories: Baking, Cakes, Fruit, Recipes

Tags: baking, banana bread, banana loaf, bananas, cake, easy recipe, fruit, loaf, macarons, Paris, raisins, recipe, spelt flour