The next recipe is a must for every banana enthusiast. I mentioned before that my company provides fresh fruits for its employees, but as it happens, from time to time, some of it gets left over. I don’t like throwing food away, so most of the times I take it with me and turn it into a cake. Most of the time I bring that cake to work, which then gets me a lot of questions if it’s my birthday.

One of the baked goods I brough is this banana bread from Bee, a fellow foodblogger from rasamalaysia.com. It disappeared pretty fast, but to be honest, no wonder, it’s so moist and fluffy and delicious, I wished I made more.

So last week, when there were few bananas left, I baked it again. I wondered whether to bring it to work again, but I think this question solved itself as half of it was gone about an hour after I took it out of the oven.

Makes 8-10 slices

Preparation time: 10min                                                    Baking time: 60-75min

4 ripe bananas,
200g (1 ⅔ cups) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
115g (½ cup / 1 stick) butter
70g (⅓ cup) sugar
2 eggs
2 handfulls of walnuts
2 ½ tablespoons dark rum
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 180ºC / 350F. Mash the bananas, using back of a fork or a food processor, until mushy.

In a sauce pan, melt the butter. Add sugar and beat until blended. Let it cool a little bit, then add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until combined. Add the bananas and move everything to a bowl. Measure out the flour, baking powder and baking soda, and add in 3 batches to the egg and butter batter, stirring well after each addition. Stir in the rum and the remaining ingredients. Pour the batter to a loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for an hour. After that time, insert a wooden skewers to check if the bread is ready, the toothpick should come out clean, otherwise leave it in the oven for additional 10-15min.