mmmm banana bread...

Whilst living in London I was lucky enough to be able to work for one of the most amazing companies, Emma Bridgewater. We had such a fun friendly office I used to spring out of bed each morning looking forward to the day ahead. We held office tea parties for birthdays, celebrations and for any other reason we could see fit and this is when I discovered that a lot of the ladies had a signature bake, Julia make lemon drizzle and Sarah made chocolate brownies and I didn't have something I could call my own, so I went in search of my signature bake and I found banana bread. A super simple recipe and it goes down a real treat. Toasted with some real butter or just on its own, the loaf never lasted long in our office.

Ingredients:
250g plain flour
1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
115g butter
115g brown soft sugar
2 eggs, beaten
500g over ripe bananas

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius/ gas mark 4. Lightly grease a loaf tin
2. In a large bowl combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the salt.
3. In a seperate bowl cream together the butter and brown sugar and add the eggs and mashed bananas. I tend to cheat at this step and add use a hand blender to get this mixture nice and smooth. It also cuts down on the time spent creaming the butter.
4. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture. Dont over mix, Just stir until it is all combined.
5. Pour the mixture into a loaf tin. Pop into the preheated oven and bake for 60-65 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean.
6. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out on a cooling rack. Then slice and enjoy.

I have also made a chocolate chip banana bread by simply adding some chocolate chips to the mixture and you could even bake the mixture in a muffin tray to get beautiful banana muffins.