Toasted Banana Bread with Mascapone, Pistachios and Berries – Recipe

I've posted my basic banana bread recipe before – but that was soon after a started my blog eight years ago, before I standardised all my measurements in metric. I've also made banana bread enough times in my life to realise that this recipe is pretty forgiving – and so easy it's a great one to make with slave labour. I mean children. It's a great one to make with children.



Previously I used an electric whisk to cream the butter and sugar together. Forget about it. A wooden spoon and a bowl or two is all you need for this one. And a fork for banana smashing.

Catch the at-a-glance tutorial video on YouTube:



Provided they're not outright rotten, the more old and sad-looking your bananas, the better. These ones I had were only just about ripe – I would have liked to have let them darken for a couple more days.


You can serve your banana bread with anything you like – cream or custard or Greek yoghurt instead of mascarpone, your favourite fruits and sweet sauces – go nuts. To bring out the greenness of the nuts, I blanched some pistachios by boiling them for one minute in water, letting them soak in the hot water for a further two minutes and them simply peeling them.


Ready? Let's go.

Ingredients for Banana Bread:

115g lightly salted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
2 eggs
4 bananas, mashed
1 tsp vanilla
280g self-raising flour

To Serve:

Mascarpone
Berries
Chopped pistachios
Pistachio creme (or Nutella)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth, followed by the eggs.

3. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas roughly with a fork.

4. Stir the mashed bananas into the butter mixture, add the vanilla, and then stir in the flour until smooth.

5. Pour into a greased tin and bake for an hour, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

6. Leave to cool completely before slicing and toasting – I toasted mine on a griddle pan because I was feeling fancy, but you can just use a regular toaster.

7. Stack with mascarpone and berries, drizzle a little warmed pistachio creme on top and sprinkle over chopped pistachios.

8. Get stuck into your brunch / dessert.


Enjoy, and have fun.


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