Late night baking

We are feeling a little fragile today after last night's escapades, M more so than I, but he was the birthday boy so that's probably appropriate, so I thought I would just share a nice simple recipe.

On Thursday evening I found bags and bags of very ripe bananas in the reduced section of the supermarket and, not being able to resist a bargain, bought some to make into banana bread, milkshakes and breakfast smoothies.

I used the following recipe from 'Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights', Sophie Dahl's cookery book. It made a wonderfully moist banana loaf that is delicious toasted with butter or just by itself. It was also so, so simple to make which made it perfect for a mid-week evening.

75g unsalted butter, softened

4 ripe bananas

200g soft brown sugar (I used brown muscavado, which I'm not sure is the same thing, but it seemed to work, giving the cake a treacly quality)

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

170g flour (Sophie Dahl suggests 'spelt or whatever', I just used plain flour)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 160 fan / Gas 4. Grease a 30 x 23 cm bread tin.

Mash the bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla extract. Add the bicarbonate of soda and salt and finally mix in the flour. Pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 hour, remove and cool on a wire rack.

See, simple!