Banana-rama!

Two things I hate are over ripe bananas and wasting food so this recipe is perfect for battling both of these things; banana loaf. My little man was keen to help me and this is a good recipe to do with little ones as they can help with lots of different parts of it depending on their age and ability. This recipe comes from Jane Bull's 'The Ultimate Cooking Book', a book I have mentioned before that is wonderfully simple and colourful for children to bake from, with excellent step by step pictures for them, and one that I still love now.

Cheeky Monkey Banana Loaf

4oz/100g Stork,
8oz/200g self raising flour,
40z/100g soft brown sugar,
6oz/150g sultanas/raisins,
2 eggs,
2 large desertspoons of runny honey,
3 ripe bananas, mashed.

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180C.
2. Rub/mix the Stork and flour together until it resembles breadcrumbs.

3. Add the sugar, sultanas, eggs and honey.

4. Mash the bananas with a fork (or your hands if you are a toddler/like getting messy) and mix well into the mixture.

5. Line a loaf tin with foil and pour the mixture in.

6. Bake for 1 hour until golden brown on top.

7. Leave to cool completely in the tin before turning out and slicing like a loaf of bread (serving suggestion is to eat it like malt loaf with butter on, yummy!).

A couple of other suggestions that this recipe has is:

• to bake this same mixture in fairy cake cases for 15 minutes to make 12 monkey muffins,
• substitute the bananas for 2 chopped and peeled apples, 125ml of milk and 1 tsp cinnamon,
• substitute the  bananas for 2 carrots peeled and grated, grated peel and juice of 1 orange and 1 tsp mixed spice.

Both these substitutions can be baked as mini muffins or as a loaf cake!

Enjoy making with your little or big monkeys!

xxx