Today I woke up with a major craving for banana bread. Scratch that, for bananas in general. I must have had some kind of weird vitamin deficiency going on because ripe, speckled bananas were all I could think about until I finally caved and walked to superstore with my mom to get me some nanas. Did you know that if you buy a bag of ripe bananas from superstore they only cost about a dollar? and they’re not even overripe, they’re perfect! miles away from their sad, green counterparts. They’re adorable and come in a little white paper baggie that says “eat me” on it. So cute in fact, that they sat in my lap during the taxi-ride home while the rest of our groceries got put in the trunk. Yes, I am that devoted. That much devotion deserved a very good banana bread recipe and because I wasn’t fully satisfied with my own, I referred to a couple different cookbook recipes and in typical Maja fashion added chia seeds, pecans and alcohol. Completely contradictory? maybe so, but in my books, if it has raisins in it, it’s gotta have rum too. In any case, what turned out is probably the best banana bread I’ve ever made. It’s delectably moist, crunchy from all the pecans and perfectly sweet and salty. You could easily replace the raisins with chocolate, the pecans with other nuts and the butter with coconut oil. If you do and can eat butter however, I highly recommend using one with a higher butterfat ratio such as one of the polish butters from the Italian center. I drizzled mine with smooth natural peanut butter. I totally encourage that too.
Ingredients
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup wheat bran
3 tbsp chia seeds
1-1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup brown sugar
100 grams butter (7 tbsp), softened
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
3 ripe bananas
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup white sultanas
½ tsp rum or 6 drops rum extract
How to:
- Preheat the oven to 180c and line a standard issue loaf pan with parchment paper
- In a medium bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.
- Using a hand mixer, in a medium bowl cream brown sugar, rum and butter until light and fluffy, scraping sides of bowl often, about 5 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, and then the milk, beating until smooth
- Add flour mixture and mashed banana to creamed mixture and fold in nuts and sultanas.
- Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in oven for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
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