Banana Bread with Hazelnuts

As you might have read in last Sunday’s post, I’ve been pretty busy lately, which also means I’ve hardly had the time to bake anything. You can imagine my excitement at finally being able to take my time in the kitchen and come up with a new and delicious recipe.

At first, I figured I wanted to give making marshmallows another try, but in the end I abandoned that idea because I needed something a bit more rustic and comforting. No messing around with gelatin and sugar thermometers for my first bake in ages, no sir! I wanted some thing nice . . . and easy ~~(and we’re rolling, rolling, rolling on the river)~~. And this banana bread definitely fits the bill! It came out absolutely gorgeous and it tasted so good!

Although, while we’re at the subject, why is banana bread called bread while it’s more like a cake type thing? Is it an excuse to eat cake at breakfast or am I simply doing it wrong? If you have any opinions about this very important topic, let me know!

You’ll need…

150 ml sunflower oil
275 light brown sugar
4 eggs
150 g plain flour
150 g wholewheat flour
a pinch of salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
75 g hazelnuts (roasted and roughly chopped)
3 ripe bananas
almond flakes to sprinkle on top
loaf tin
and an oven, of course! This banana bread needs to be baked at 170 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Mix together sugar and oil Take a large bowl and mix together the butter and the sugar until it’s nicely combined. Since you’re working with oil instead of butter it won’t get light and creamy, but that’s fine!

2. Add eggs Add the four eggs to the mixture one by one and mix until it’s all combined. I used an electric handheld whisk for these steps.

3. Mix dry ingredients and hazelnuts together Take another bowl, and mix the two types of flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger together with a spoon or a whisk. Also add the chopped hazelnuts to this mixture.

4. Add dry ingredients to wet mixture Add the flour mixture to the bowl with the wet ingredients and mix it together with your electric mixer until it’s mixed evenly.

5. Mash bananas and add them to batter Mash the ripe bananas with a fork. Tip: if you’re bananas aren’t ripe yet, put them (skin and all) in a hot over (about 150 °C) for a couple of minutes until they’ve turned black on the outside. They’ll be perfect then! Add the mashed bananas to the batter and mix it all again until it’s combined.

6. Transfer batter to tin and bake! Pour your batter into a greased and floured loaf tin. Mine was filled almost completely to the brim, which had me worried a little, but it worked out fine. Put the tin into your preheated oven (170 °C) and bake the bread for 1 hour to 1 hour and 20 minutes. If an inserted skewer comes out clean, you know it’s done. Don’t overbake it, because it’ll become dry that way. If the top of your bread starts to get a bit too brown but the inside isn’t done yet, cover the tin with some aluminium foil and continue baking. Once the bread is done, take the tin out of the oven and let the bread cool inside the tin. When it’s almost completely cooled, carefully take the bread out of the tin.

And that’s it! You’ve got yourself a lovely banana bread with hazelnuts. Enjoy!