Cardamom spiced "healthy" banana and walnut bread

There has being slight delay in blogging the last couple of weeks. Much apologies.   I was entertaining my oldest friend Sophie (aka Betty - not that she is old,  I have just known her since I was a toddler) and her 3 lovely boys. 

One of my earliest friendship memories with Soph is giving motivational speeches  to the non-egg laying hens her Dad  (a vet) was trying to cure when they lived on a farm in Somerset.  They duly preformed and we very proudly collected eggs on the last day of my holiday -  it later turned out our mums had bought the eggs in the shop and placed them in the hen-house the night before.  However we were convinced for years that we had single- handedly cured the hens with our delicious scraps, gently coaxing and wise words.  Who needs an X-box and play station when you have got hens to converse with.   I believe it was the same holiday my Dad got tossed into a hedge by an angry bull..... but thats a whole other story.

Anyway some ripe bananas and recipe tinkering ,  I think I have come up with my latest banana bread recipe.  Now if you belong to the “banana bread should be like cake” camp, this recipe may disappoint.   If however you are like me and think banana bread should be more bread like,  then you should enjoy this recipe.  And.... bonus... its relatively healthy.  It does have sugar but much less than many conventional banana bread recipes.  And no butter just a tablespoon of oil.   Don’t get me wrong ,  I quite like to make proper cakes with butter and sugar but for something like banana bread ,  it seems quite unnecessary.  Traditionally cinnamon is the spice for banana bread but I can’t get enough of cardamom.  Its absolutely one of my favorite spices,  for savoury and sweet dishes alike.    As a result you could probably fry up an old shoe and sprinkle it with cardamom and I would think it was delicious.  but I understand that not everyone has my cardamom obsession so please feel free to substitute with cinnamon.   Also because it is relatively low fat it doesn’t keep as long as some banana breads but it toasts beautifully. 

 This is a great way to use up really ripe bananas,  the riper the better,  mine had a leopard-like skin but an all black panther like skin is even better.

Ingredients

2 large eggs

100g of brown sugar

3 mashed very ripe bananas.

100ml of buttermilk

1 tablespoon vegetable oil ( I use rapeseed)

A dash of  vanilla extract ( 1/2 tsp in this case)

130 g of plain flour

130g of wholemeal flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

50 g of walnuts , roughly chopped ( Pecans would be nice too)

Cardamom seeds (seeds from about 8 - 10 pods) / 1/2 tsp of cinnamon

Method

Preheat oven to  180c/Gas 4/Fan 165c

Grease a 2lb loaf tin well and dust with flour. ( I cheat here and use greaseproof loaf tin liners - available from lakelands.co.uk -  some of my tins have lost their non stickiness and it saves tears later on) 

Crack the cardmom pods with a knife and take out the seeds.  Crush in a pestle and morter or use your knife.

Beat eggs and sugar until thick and light, This takes around 4 minutes with an electric beater,  very much longer by hand ;-)

Mix in mashed bananas, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and cardamom seeds. 

Add in both flours, baking powder, baking soda and  salt, fold until just blended.  Then gently stir in the walnuts.  The mix will be quite sloppy

Pour mix into the prepared tin.

Bake in the oven for about 1 hour until golden brown on top.  Test it is cooked by inserting a skewer into center.  The skewer should come out clean.  

It  may take a little longer depending on your oven.  Tip :  If you feel the inside not fully cooked but the outside is getting to brown - Just put some tinfoil over the top and continue cooking in the oven.  This works for most cakes and breads.

Leave cake in the tin for a couple of minutes then turn out onto rack and cool.  I like to eat it while its still warmish.