A Winning Banana Nut Bread

Karen Elizabeth's Note:

This is my standard recipe for banana bread, been making it for years, it describes itself as so easy that your children can try their hand at it! It always turns out well for me, and I am not much of a baker. It comes from "The Best Of Winning Recipes", a compilation of recipes from a popular South African magazine, "Huisgenoot". This recipe is accredited to Mrs H van der Berg of Brits.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Serves: 8

Yield: 1.0 loaf

• 6 ripe medium bananas
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 275 g cake flour
• 15 ml baking powder
• 2 ml salt
• 200 g sugar
• 150 g peanuts , chopped
• 2 eggs , separated
• 50 g butter or 50 g margarine , melted
• 5 ml grated lemon rind

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350°F Grease a 23x13x7 cm loaf tin. Peel and mash the bananas and mix them with the lemon juice.
2. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt, in a fairly large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and nuts and mix. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the flour mixture with the butter or margarine. Mix lightly.
3. Add the banana pulp and lemon rind and mix well.
4. Beat the egg whites until just stiff, and fold them lightly into the batter with a metal spoon.
5. Spoon the batter into the tin, level it off, and sprinkle more nuts on top if desired. (I sprinkle some brown sugar on top).
6. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 60 minutes. Test with a skewer to see if done: if the skewer comes out clean, the loaf is ready; if it does not, bake for a further 10 to 15 minutes.
7. Allow the loaf to cool slightly in the tin. Turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Reviews

[katew]

I used this recipe and made muffins today. I halved the quantities and it worked very well, cooked in 25 - 30 minutes. I really enjoyed the peanuts in this - took good ole banana bread up a notch !!

[Katzen]

Oh, this is a divine banana bread recipe, Karen Elizabeth! I love the hint of lemon, and the peanuts are wonderful in it, too! I used a 8 1/2 x 4 1/2" loaf pan, and wish I'd used a 9x5" pan, but ended up baking the extra in a glass ramiken, which gave me a lovely little loaf as well! I'll definately count this as one of my favourite banana bread recipes ever! Thanks, KE! Made for PRMR Tag.

[Tisme]

You are spot on with this recipe Karen! Great Bread. I followed nearly exactly as written, I used chopped peanuts as well as some chopped macadamia's I had on hand, but had forgotten I had thrown my loaf tin out and forgotten to buy a new one...no problems I used a square tin, it came out probably not as deep as it should but still was near perfect just the same. I sprinkled with brown sugar and some leftover nuts on top....delicious! This bread has a really lovely banana flavour, moist and not too sweet! Thanks Karen...DH especially enjoyed this!