Chocolate Chip Banana Loaf

   After having recently moved, with a lot of help from my family, I'm trying to show my thanks with food. Last week I invited my brother, Tom, and his fiancée, April, over for dinner.

   For this I made a typical meal that we would make in the days of dog sitting at my Mum's house. Fish baked with homemade pesto, mountains of veg and sweet potato mash. I also made some Vietnamese spring rolls to tuck into whilst waiting and served some of my work friend's amazing chicken samosas.


   We finished with a favourite of Tom's, a banana loaf. Something I haven't baked much of but am keen to find the perfect recipe to add to my repertoire. I always think that if I were ever to have my own recipe book that I'd have to include the favourites of each member of my family.

   So here is Tom's loaf...

Chocolate chip banana loaf
(Recipe adapted from Jo Wheatley's A Passion for Baking)
     100g demerara sugar
     150g soft light brown sugar
     2 large eggs
     2 ripe bananas, mashed
     280g plain flour
     2tsp baking powder
     140g unsalted butter, melted
     100g milk chocolate chips
     2tsp ground cinnamon

• Heat the oven to 170 degrees and grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.
• Whisk both the sugars and eggs until thoroughly combined. Mix in the mashed banana.
• Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and fold in using a spatula or large metal spoon.
• Add the melted butter, chocolate chips and cinnamon and mix until thoroughly combined.
• Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 1 hour. Until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cover with foil if it starts to brown too quickly.
• Remove the cake from the tin and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

   I really do recommend Jo's book to any home baker. Pages full of straight forward recipes and not one that I've found I wouldn't bake.

   After pushing myself to do some 'blogmin' over the weekend, hello shiny social network buttons, my 2014 aim for this wee blog is to attempt to post every Monday. So Happy Monday to you all, and see you same time next week!