I pulled out an old favourite for my Saturday morning bake-off, Banana and Raspberry Bread.  I hadn’t made it for a longtime.  I think I got out of the habit of buying bananas ever since Cyclone Yasi destroyed the crops a year and a half ago and the prices skyrocketed.

This morning the Farmer’s Market had lovely Lady Finger bananas so cheap I had to buy some for the boys and to make this great bread.

Whenever I make it I am reminded of my first days as a new mum.  My Sister-in-Law baked this for us to have for afternoon tea and I think it was the only thing I ate uninterrupted by  a nappy change or feed in that first week.

Ingredients

• 150 grams butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 ripe bananas mashed
• 2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup frozen raspberries

Method

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius (fan-forced oven).  Grease and line a standard loaf pan

Beat butter and sugar until pale and creamy. 

As it is so cold here at the moment there was no way my butter was going to soften anytime soon.  I used the George Colombaris’ tip of grating the butter first and it worked well.  

Add eggs, beating well.  Stir in banana.

Sift flour and baking powder on top of mixture and then add milk. Stir until combined.

Gently add raspberries to the mix

Place mix into the pan and bake.  The recipe states it takes about 45 minutes, but I find it is so big and dense it take about 60 minutes in my oven. I keep an eye on it an use a skewer to test that it is cooked through.

Leave to cool in the pan for a while before turning onto rack to cool completely

Serve warm or cold.  You can spread it with butter for an extra special treat.

This is lovely with a cup of tea.  I have in the past frozen it for school lunches and it holds up pretty well.  I recommend this as a must try recipe.