Easy Banana Bread

and Apple Loaf Cake

For those  who follow my blog, you'll know that I post about doing my baking on a Saturday morning, unless I'm away for the day or weekend, then I do it during the week. 

I always bake two loaves of bread (one for us and one for Johan),  a banana bread and an Apple Loaf Cake. They are both baked in loaf pans, (I have two), at the same oven temperature and for the same amount of time.

I found both recipes on the Internet but cannot see the link for the banana bread recipe. The Apple Loaf Cake is a Nigella Lawson recipe. I've added a few extra fresh ingredients, such as grated carrot, mashed banana and dried apricots and it still - like the banana bread - turns out perfectly every time.

Banana bread (closest) and Apple Loaf Cake

Banana Bread

100g unsalted butter

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 egg

4-5 small bananas (mashed)

1/4 cup natural yoghurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinamon

1/2 cup  walnuts, toasted (optional)

Preheat oven to 180 C and grease a 900ml loaf pan

Beat butter and sugar in a bowl untill creamy and fluffy

Add egg and beat until well combined

Add banana, yoghurt and vanilla and stir through

Sift together flour, baking powder and cinamon and fold into batter

Stir in walnuts, if using

Pour batter into loaf tin and bake for 1 hour or until skewer inserted in centre comes out clean

Cool in pan for 10 minutes, turn out onto cooling rack

Serve butter if desired

Apple loaf cake - Nigella.com

Dry ingredients

300g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinamon

200g raisins or any chopped dried fruit of your choice

Wet ingredients

150g melted butter

150g soft sugar

2 eggs

4 medium apples, grated (1 use two apples, 1 large carrot and 1 banana)

Method

This is a wet/dry cake method. Place all wet ingredients in one bowl, dry ingredients into another, then mix together

The easiest way to grate an apple, is take a whole apple, grate skin until you reach near the pips. Turn apple around and grate until you only have the middle bit left

Mix ingredients together by hand to avoid lumps forming

Pour batter into 900g loaf tin, bake at 180 for 60 minutes
A skewer should come out clean when inserted in middle of loaf
Turn out onto cooling rack
Serve with butter

Enjoy!