Why Audrey is my top banana

It seems to be the case that every food blog worth the name has a recipe for banana tea bread. It almost goes without saying that all have the definitive version, the best ever, the top banana of recipes. You may have noticed that this blog is sadly lacking in that department.

It has recipes for making bacon, brown sauce, curried apple chutney, elderflower gin, pickled rhubarb, Melba toast and goodness knows what else but there is a big tea bread shaped hole among the 139 posts. Today it is filled!

I can confidently say that this recipe for banana tea bread is the best ever but I am making no claim that it is mine. It belongs to a food blogger in the USA called Audrey and she says it is the best ever. And it is.

Audrey, a married lady who blogs at www.meladycooks.com and is given to watching TV while munching on a cucumber rather than a chocolate bar, is a very kind follower of Another Helping. She doesn’t pretend she came up with the recipe herself. She found it online , only she has forgotten where (we’ve all been there), tinkered with it until she was satisfied and published it, almost in passing.

I, too, have tinkered. Well, it is part of the fun of cooking. I have rarely exactly followed a recipe in my life because, like most cooks, I obviously know better!

This recipe has become a staple in our household, not just for elevenses or afternoon tea but as a pudding. Last year I filled a big jar full of wild cherries picked in a deserted graveyard and topped them up with brandy. A slice or two of banana bread soaked in cherry-flavoured brandy, garnished with cherries and served with icecream or yoghurt makes a great standby dessert.

The catalyst for this post is that we had too many brown bananas and to use them up I made my best ever version of this best ever recipe.

So I give you Audrey’s recipe without tinkering. All I will say that I use more bananas than her two, and very often a pinch of cinnamon. Audrey is wary of adding spices and going over the top with the bananas but I like the flavour and, anyway, they probably have bigger bananas than us in the States.

So here it is:

Banana Bread {Best Ever}

1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking 62 bananas
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon buttermilk (I use milk curdled with lemon juice)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 °F Grease bottom of a 12″ x 3 1/2″ loaf pan.
Stir together flour, sugar, soda and salt in one bowl.
Mash bananas then combine eggs, oil, buttermilk and vanilla. Add flour mixture and stir just until combined.
Pour into greased pan and bake for 1 hour or until toothpick tests done.
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes then turn out onto a rack and cool completely. Store in a covered container at room temperature.
Thank you Audrey.