Sorry for the rubbish photo, if I had realised so many people would have been interested in this bread I would have taken better pictures! I tweeted a photo of this Banana & Cardamom Bread that I randomly baked the other night – I had a couple of overripe bananas and was going to make a banana cake but had no loaf tin, so went to make muffins but had no buttermilk. I found this bread recipe and thought it sounded weird but I’d give it a go – I’m so glad I did because it is SO delicious, especially toasted with lots of butter!
You will need:
- 400g strong white bread flour
- 1 tsp. dried yeast, added to 150ml warm water, with a pinch of sugar, left for 10 minutes
- the seeds of 10 cardamom pods, bashed up
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed up
- sesame seeds to sprinkle on top
To make your bread:
- Sieve the flour into a bowl, add your salt and make a well.00
- Add the yeast mixture, bananas and cardamon seeds to the well.
- Mix with a wooden spoon until it’s all combined, then knead with your hands. Add more flour if it’s too sticky – mine was as the bananas were big!
- Cover and leave to prove for 2 hours.
- Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and sprinkle a little flour.
- Preheat your oven to 220 degrees C.
- Knead your dough again then put it on the lined baking sheet and attempt to plait it.
- If your dough-plaiting isn’t great, don’t worry, mine wasn’t either but it will taste fine.
- Cover and leave it to prove again, I left mine for about half an hour.
- Sprinkle with sesame seeds, bake for 10 minutes, reduce to 200 degrees C and bake for about 15 minutes more.
Enjoy your delicious bread!
Recipe adapted from Best-Ever Bread Cookbook.
