I wasn't allowed to work for the first few months that I lived in the UK. Having arrived on a Fiance's visa, I had to wait for an employment visa before I could actually apply for a job. We lived in a very small ground floor Maisonette apartment, which had a small kitchen, a bedroom, a lounge and a bathroom. Cleaning and tidying that didn't take a lot of time, to say the least. While Todd was at work, I used to enjoy a variety of cooking shows on the telly at the time. One of those was Ready Steady Cook. It involved a host (Ainsley Harriot), two celebrity chefs and two guests. The guests would bring in a mystery bag of ingredients and the chef's would have to make as many dishes as they could from what was in the bag in an allotted length of time.
That was exactly how I liked to cook . . . take a pile of ingredients and then see what I could do with them! Another show I enjoyed was Great British Classics, starring the chef Gary Rhodes. I was really keen to learn what British food and cookery was all about and he epitomised the very best for me. I liked his style so much that the first Christmas Todd and I spent together, I asked him for the same entitled cookery book by Gary Rhodes.
Gary Rhodes and Delia Smith became my culinary mentors when I first moved to the UK. I learnt a lot from them and from these basic books!!
This Banana Loaf recipe comes from Gary's book.
I had bought in a bunch of fresh fruit prior to Christmas Day. I wanted the Missionaries to have a bit of choice while we were all waiting for dinner to be ready for eating. Needless to say, a lot of it didn't get eating and so today I found myself with some ripe bananas which needed using up.
I remembered this Banana & Golden Syrup Loaf in Gary's book and decided to try it out.
Its an all in one recipe where you just bung everything into a bowl, beat it all together and then pour the batter into a pan and bake.
After having cooked two large meals this week, I wasn't much in the mood for cooking anything very involved, so it suited me to a "T".
The end result was an incredibly squidgy, moist banana loaf!
The golden syrup lends a bit of a caramel/butterscotch flavor to the loaf. If you can't find golden syrup, you can just use corn syrup. It will work well, but might not have the same flavor.
It doesn't have a lot of fat in it. The mashed bananas replace some of the fat in the recipe. It doesn't rise really high either. At first I though it has fallen, but when I cut into it I realised that it hadn't. Its just a somewhat flattish squidgy loaf.
We like to enjoy our banana breads warm and spread with cold butter . . . doesn't everyone??
It was really quite a nice loaf. My favorite banana loaf is still going to be my Sour Cream Banana Loaf, but this is one it not to shabby at all!
Yield: 1 (2-lb) loafAuthor: Marie Rayner
Banana & Golden Syrup Loaf
prep time: 10 minscook time: 55 minstotal time: 65 minsA simple and delicious way to use up over-ripe bananas.ingredients:
225g self - raising flour (1 1/2 cups +2 TBS)100g butter, softened (1/2 cup)4medium ripe bananas, peeled and mashed50g soft dark brown sugar (1/4 cup packed)4 TBS golden syrup4 large free range eggs, beaten lightly
instructions:
Preheat the oven to 180*C.350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 2pound loaf tin and line it with baking paper. (I use the baking liners
that you can buy.) Measure all of the ingredients into a bowl and beat together until well combined. Pour into the lined tin.
Bake
in the pre-heated oven for 50 to 55 minutes. The loaf should be golden
brown, well risen and a toothpick inserted in the center should come
out clean.
Let rest in the tin for 10 minutes before slipping out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
Note - you can add 50g (1/2 cup) toasted chopped walnuts or pecans if you wish.Created using The Recipes Generator
Over-ripe bananas in the fruit bowl always spell Banana Bread to me! May it ever be so! Bon Appetit!
