Super Easy, Scrumptious Banana Bread - Don't Waste Those Ageing Bananas...

Hello Honeys
How are you today?  I'm trying to catch up on laundry and other little household tasks from the weekend, with the help of our furbaby Jade of course 💖

With the high temperature these past few weeks, even when it's been raining, we've been facing a too often annoying waste of fruit.  We always have fruit in our kitchen honeys, Hubby takes an apple and orange to work with him each day, along with a small "snack pot" containing nuts (right now that's dry roasted peanuts.)

The excessive heat in the kitchen seems to be really shortening the basket life of our fruit, especially the bananas.  I really dislike waste dear ones.  Everything, especially food it seems to me, is so expensive these days so binning wasted food just seems so wrong.

If we had room I'd store our fruit in the fridge but since we've gotten into meal prepping the fridge is always stocked with lovely fresh salads and glass pots of fresh yogurt and fruit.  We need a bigger fridge (and freezer) which we're working on right now, but that brings us back to lovely bananas just wilting away in the heat of our kitchen.

So, I had gone into the kitchen and spotted four little bananas that had to be used or binned and immediately thought of making some yummy banana muffins.  Having made up a (double) batch of muffin mixture (to use the four bananas) well this happened...

Yum! My banana muffin mixture actually became a loaf of banana bread and some yummy muffins too and they were wonderful!

Just like the banana muffins, this delicious loaf was so easy to make it practically made itself 😊  Why not grab a cuppa honeys and meet me back here in a few mins and I'll share how I made it 💖

Welcome back, do you have your cuppa?  me too ☕  Why not get comfortable, put your feet up and enjoy your cuppa and we'll have a look at how four little too ripe bananas became a yummy loaf and a batch of just as yummy muffins instead of ending up in the bin!

Super Easy Scrumptious Banana Bread 

Now, as I said dear ones, I had four wilting bananas to cook with so I made a double batch of this yummy mixture but the ingredients listed below are for a single batch.  This will give you enough for a single banana loaf or a single batch of banana muffins. 

Let's get started, shall we?  

Ingredients:

150g caster sugar

250g self raising flour

75g oatmeal

2 medium eggs

2 large bananas

150ml milk

50 ml oil

Directions:  

1. First preheat your oven to 185C/365F and then gather your ingredients honeys. 

2. Fetch a large mixing bowl.  Into this bowl place your sugar, oatmeal & (sieved) flour.  Gently stir together with a spoon till combined.  Create a hole or well in the middle of the bowl. Set to one side for now.

3. In a small container use a fork to mash your bananas.  To the banana mash, add your oil, milk and two eggs (which you've already whisked together) then stir until they are thoroughly combined. 

NOTE: the result is gloopy to say the least! The oil will rise to the top and it looks entirely unattractive but don't worry about it, it's perfectly fine!

4.  Gently add a little (about a third) of the banana, eggs, milk & oil mixture into the bowl containing your dry ingredients (sugar, flour & oatmeal.)  

The banana mixture should be poured carefully into the hole or well you made in the middle of the combined dry ingredients, and gently stirred, not beaten.  Continue adding and mixing until all of the banana mixture is mixed through and none of the dry ingredients are left.

As you can see the mixture is thick and a little lumpy. This is fine, all you need to do is to make sure that the dry ingredients are completely combined with the "wet" ingredients.

5. Fetch a loaf tin and either grease well or add a tin liner.  Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and very gently "tap" the base of the loaf tin on your work surface. You don't have to do this honeys, I just always do when I'm making a non bread type loaf.  I read somewhere (many) years ago that it helps to avoid air bubbles.  

6. Gently place the loaf tin into the oven, on the middle shelf, and bake for approximately 18-20 minutes, or until the banana bread is golden brown.  You should be able to push a knife through the middle and it will come out clean when it's cooked.  Carefully place onto a cooling rack till completely cooled.

7. Make a cuppa, cut a slice, serve & enjoy 😋   

This really yummy banana bread, when cooked, is the just like the banana muffins.  It's very dense, with the texture reminding me a little of a bran muffin, but so tasty.  

Would you rather make some delicious banana muffins?  Then make the recipe above exactly the same way and spoon the mixture into muffin cases placed into a muffin baking tray. Remember you'll need to adjust the baking time to approximately 15-18 minutes.  This mixture should give you around 12-16 muffins, depending on the size of your muffin cases...  

These yummy muffins are perfect to pop into school lunch bags or to have mid morning with a cuppa ☕

Back to our lovely banana bread then honeys.  Why not slice the loaf and eat it as it is or spread a slice with butter.  Why not toast a slice and add a little butter or jam? 

Not a huge fan of bananas? Why not try replacing the bananas with mixed berries?  Dried fruits like currants or raisins are fabulous in muffins (or fruit loaves) too.  Whichever way you choose to make this yummy loaf (or muffins) honeys, enjoy 😋

Do you have a favourite muffin recipe? If so I'd love to hear about it, Have you blogged your own favourite recipe?  Do leave a link in the comments section below, or even just say hello 😊 

Whatever you're doing today, I hope you're having fun and enjoying the gorgeous summer weather while we have it.  Enjoy the rest of the week dear ones, till next time, hugs always x