Soft, fluffy, moist and utterly and completely mouth-watering is how I describe the banana bread Chef Eran Mayer baked for us in his kitchen at Artisan Boulangerie Co., or abc, as it says in their logo.
I felt so lucky to have been invited into the kitchen at abc together with my colleagues. There, the skilled chefs come up with mouth-watering goodies that are then presented so beautifully in the restaurant’s showcases.
The wonderful banana bread Chef Eran baked for us.
On entering the kitchen I was hit with the smell of bread baking – such an inviting and appetizing smell! After showing us around his kitchen, Chef Eran demonstrated how banana bread is made, using this recipe.
Of course, he made it look ever so effortless — just throwing ingredients into a bowl, and whisking this and mixing that. He reassured us home-bakers that this is extremely easy to prepare though, so do try out the recipe below!
Banana bread
Serves 6
Ingredients
150g soft butter
300g flour
240g icing sugar
2 large eggs
2 egg yolks
15g baking powder
5g salt
325g ripe bananas
30g lemon juice
40g chopped dried apricots (optional)
5g cinnamon
Method
Pre-heat oven to 180C. Grease a 15 x 6.5 x 5cm loaf tin.
Step 1: Combine flour, icing sugar, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Sift into a mixing bowl.
Step 2: In a large bowl, mash bananas, lemon juice and soft butter with a hand-held blender. Add eggs and egg yolks, and blend till the mixture is smooth.
Step 3: Gradually add the flour mixture until consistency is smooth.
Step 4: Add chocolate chips, apricots or any other add-ins of your choice and mix to combine.
Step 5: Pour mixture into the loaf tin up to ¾ height. Bake for 10 mins at 180C. Then reduce to 160C and bake for 30 mins till golden. To check if cooked, stick a toothpick in the centre of the cake. It should come out clean. Serve warm or cold.
Variations: Instead of the chopped apricots stated in the recipe, we asked Chef Eran if he could use chocolate chips and he willingly obliged. He says that you can also use raisins, walnuts or any other dried fruit or chopped nuts you fancy.
Cost
The approximate cost for this entire cake is only $10. Isn’t that awesome?
Mums, would you be willing to try this recipe at home? If you do end up trying it, please let us know how it turned out by leaving a comment below.