Never Mind The Hyperbole, Eat The Banana Bread

Ah, combining the Sex Pistols and baking - it should surely only happen on a Monday. And yet.

The latest expedition into baking was banana bread, which I tried out on the weekend. When I went looking for a recipe (after so many years of eating it in cafés, I wanted to try out making it myself), I wasn't at all consciously looking for a healthy version (for once). But one of the recipes I came across, which immediately appealed because of its use of golden syrup, which might be one of my favourite ingredients / illicit sneaky snacks ever. And then, I noticed that it didn't actually use any butter or oil. Bonus! Despite my lurking suspicions that this might turn out to be regrettable*, it came out well. Even being cooked in our temperamental Smeg oven (Smeg is a four letter word with good reason...). So well, in fact, that I made a second, double-quantity loaf, to use up the aging bananas that had been accumulating in the kitchen.

The recipe for the "best ever" banana bread (and don't let the name put you off) is:

2 ripe bananas
2 tablespoons golden syrup (plus extra if the cook needs some to eat...)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg white
1 cup self raising flour
pinch of salt (which I left out, as I always do)

Preheat oven to 180C (160C if fan forced).
Grease and line the base of a loaf pan (I lined mine with baking paper, no greasing, and it worked fine).
In a medium bowl, mash bananas then add golden syrup. Add sugar and stir in.
Add egg, sifted flour and salt, and lightly mix until combined.
Pour into loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes or until skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Allow to cool in tin for 10 minutes, then turn onto wire rack to cool.

* While on a health kick, I decided I'd try the cooking-with-apple-sauce-instead-of-butter idea. Discovery: it doesn't matter how much cocoa it contains, a chocolate brownie made with apple sauce comes out (well, it did for me) as a rubbery, squashy, pallid excuse for a baked item. Much like sugar-free chocolate, it is a useful reminder that some things, if they deserve to be eaten, deserve to be eaten properly.