Fluffy, very banana-y banana bread.

Banana bread.

Aileen: You know there's this banana diet in Japan?

Me: Huh? How? Eat banana all day?

Aileen: You go google it. It's damn popular everywhere now.

Which explains why I have 16 bananas sitting on top of my fridge.

Then my mum called and told me about the recent article in the paper about the banana diet craze. It explains that only certain variety is suitable for this diet. The long, green (even when ripe) bananas from Philippines is the worst type of banana to eat on an empty stomach, as the diet suggested. Coincidentally, the 16 bananas I bought happened to be of that variety. Sigh, what to do. Bake banana bread.

Even though it is called banana bread, the taste and the texture is more of a cake. But unlike the normal banana cake, this recipe has got alot of banana in it, thus it has got an awesome banana flavour. A very banana-y fluffy cake. I got the recipe from Professional Baking, and modified it to my logic. haha, I didnt follow their instructions to make. Therefore: use this recipe at your own peril.

Banana bread- makes 1 20cm round tin, and 2 ramekins.

250g plain flour
150g cornflour
10g baking powder
2g baking soda (i don't think it makes much of a difference)
pinch of salt
150g brown sugar
100g butter (melted)
3 yolks
3 whites
350g (4) ripe bananas (the more ripe it is the better)
50g sugar (what colour, brown, white)

1: Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius. Grease and line tin.

2: Mash the bananas into puree with 50g sugar. You can do a rough mash or a ultra fine mash, depending on your preference. Rough will give you banana bits in the cake. I did mine medium. Set aside.

3: Whisk yolks to pale and light. Add sugar and whisk to thick and creamy.

4: Sieve flours, baking powder and soda, and salt together. Fold 1/3 into yolk mixture.

5: Add 1/2 melted butter and fold.

6: Add rest of the flour mixture, fold and add the rest of the butter. Fold until all the flour is incorporated. The batter should be quite thick, almost like a very wet dough.

7: Stir in the banana mixture. Mix till homogeneous.

8: Whisk whites to stiff, fold it through the batter. Take care not to overmix, we don't want to
loose any of the aeration. It is crucial for the fluffiness of the cake.

9: Pour into tins, bake at 190 degrees celcius for 50minutes or till the cake springs back when pressed.

Tadah!

I used the sponging method for this recipe, whereby you whisk whole eggs to ribbon stage, and I thought myself very stupid. Whisking whole eggs to ribbon stage by hand is very hard work. Though I have never tried the above method, but I suppose it works as well and it is easier to execute. haha, you guys can try then you tell me. I had a shock while folding in the flours with the whole egg mixture. I didn't realise there was so much flour to fold! When the batter became so heavy, all I could think was shit.... So after I added the banana, I whisked two whites to stiff peaks and folded them through. Therefore, I thought it would be better if the eggs were whisked separately. Anyway, if it doesn't work, you can always come back to do the sponging method and break your arm at the same time. haha. just kidding.. :D

Bon appetite!

End.