Banana Bread

This cake is a big hit, I used Nigel Slater's recipe and the best best dark chocolate I could afford AND the two ripest bananas that ever did grow. In fact so ripe they were that the skin had started to fall off.......

Now it doesn't picture too attractively but it tastes supremely and consumers loved it.

You'll need.....

175g unsalted butter, softened

175g sugar (half light muscovado, half golden caster)

75g hazelnuts - add these they make a massive difference

2 free-range eggs

175g self-raising flour 

2 very ripe bananas (about 250g total weight)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

175g good-quality dark chocolate chips

You'll need to.......

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line the base and sides of a 20cm x 12cm loaf tin with baking parchment.

Beat the butter and sugars until light and coffee-coloured. Do this with a whisker.

Toast the hazelnuts, rub them in a tea towel to remove their skins, then grind quite finely. Alternatively you can buy a bag of them already chopped and toasted.

Slowly add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture, then mix in the toasted ground hazelnuts and self-raising flour.

Peel the bananas and chop them the small pieces. Gently fold the vanilla extract, the bananas and the chocolate chips into the cake mixture, turning gently and taking care not to overmix.

Scoop the cake batter into the prepared loaf tin. Dust with a little demerara sugar. Bake for between 1 hour and 1 hour 10 minutes, covering the cake with foil if the top starts to darken too quickly.

I leave a tea towel over the top of it as it cool, because it absorbs the steam and leaves the top of the bread nice and soft.

I even cut those slices in halves again and that was enough of a serving to suffice and satisfy hungry people at 3pm on a work day.