Banana Bread, Cookbooks & Kaylie

On December 31^st 2009, my friend Kaylie and I decided we would begin our New Years Eve celebrations in a relaxed way. It was the afternoon and still over 30 °C outside so we found ourselves walking into the local (and air conditioned) bookshop. Both food lovers, we scrawled our way through cookbook after cookbook. I made two wonderful purchases – Jamie Oliver’s Jamie's America and Sophie Dahl’s Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights.

Kaylie is a good cook; she loves food and has exceptional taste. And she values the experience of dining, so it is always a pleasure eating with her.

With a glass of wine in hand, I remember settling into the kitchen, next to another skilled cook and feeling completely at ease. From Jamie’s book we made spicy cornbread and a roasted avocado corn chip salad. And, when we were done having a lovely time at home, we went off to have a lovely time with our other friends. It was an excellent warm up to 2010.

That summer I cooked almost every day, and it was the other book, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights that starred. Sophie Dahl, a former model and the granddaughter of Roald Dahl, says, "I am not an authority on anything much, but I do feel qualified to talk about eating. I’ve done a lot of it."  Separated by seasons, the recipes in this book are simple and delicious.

My recipe for banana bread is an adaptation of Miss Dahl's version. I halved the sugar, added more bananas and threw in some garam masala. These days I do try avoiding all-purpose white flour when baking, this works perfectly with rye or whole spelt flour as she suggests.

While I call this ‘bread,’ my Danish housemate Maria calls it ‘cake.’ I try to forget this every time I eat it for breakfast and dinner. Maybe we should call it a loaf? Banana Loaf … doesn’t really have the same ring to it does it Maria!?

Banana Bread

75 g butter, softened

1 egg

½ cup brown sugar

5 very ripe bananas (I mash 3 and roughly chop the other 2)

1 tablespoon garam masala OR ½ tablespoon ginger and ½ tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon vanilla extract (optional)

1 ½ cups spelt or rye flour (you can use unbleached all-purpose instead)

1 pinch salt

1 teaspoon bi-carb soda, sifted

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a loaf tin with baking paper.

Mix the butter and sugar well. If you can’t be bothered working with soft butter, it is fine to use it melted. Beat in the egg, your preferred spices and the vanilla extract if using. Add the mashed bananas and mix well. Throw in the rest of the bananas, flour, salt, bi-carb soda and gently stir until combined.

Put into the tin and bake for 1 hour. Check that it is cooked with a knife; it may need 10 more minutes. You don’t want to overcook this. If the batter is a little underdone around the whole bananas it will firm up when cool.

Remove from the oven, let it cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then turn it onto a rack.  

I like my banana bread toasted with a lick of butter.