Some Real Baking: Banana Bread #1

It was all YY's idea to make banana bread. I actually wasn't aware that banana bread is distinct from banana cake until I came here. Back in Malaysia, all I knew was banana cake. Now that I'm here, all I hear about is banana bread and not banana cake anymore. So I tried to google to clarify the difference between banana bread and banana cake, here's what I got:

Banana bread is a quick bread that contains mashed ripe bananas.

--Redirected from 'Banana Cake' (Wikipedia, 2009)

So apparently they're the same thing. Hmm.

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Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 50 minutes

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups (225g) plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 125g melted butter
• 3 large over-ripe bananas
• 3/4 cup raisins (or pecan nuts, walnuts, chocolate chip)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease the base and side of a tin and line it with baking paper. Ideally, you should use a loaf tin since it's banana bread. But we used a square cake tin (because we don't have a loaf tin :/).
2. In Bowl 1, sift and mix the dry ingredients together - flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and brown sugar.
3. In Bowl 2, whisk the wet ingredients together - eggs, vanilla extract, and butter. You can use a whisk or an electric mixer. You would want to obtain a light, slightly creamy consistency. You can't really see the texture from the picture, but make sure not to let it get too thick. Whisking should take about 5-6 minutes whilst an electric mixer would take about 2 minutes (the video said so).
4. Mash the bananas and add them into Bowl 2. Mix well.
5. Slowly add the contents of Bowl 2 into Bowl 1 and mix well. Use a spatula or a wooden spoon to fold the ingredients into each other. In the process, add the raisins in as well. I think we sorta overmixed at this step, the batter looks too smooth.
6. Spoon batter into tin and bake for 50minutes. Poke it with a toothpick/skewer to check!
7. Serve with maple syrup and butter for breakfast, or ice cream for dessert. Fat fat!

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Pic 1: YY's excited face

Pic 3: Served up with Connoiseur's Caramel Honey Macadamia ice cream - imba