Food Friday – Banana & Cardamom Bread Recipe

Sorry for the rubbish photo, if I had realised so many people would have been interested in this bread I would have taken better pictures! I tweeted a photo of this Banana & Cardamom Bread that I randomly baked the other night – I had a couple of overripe bananas and was going to make a banana cake but had no loaf tin, so went to make muffins but had no buttermilk. I found this bread recipe and thought it sounded weird but I’d give it a go – I’m so glad I did because it is SO delicious, especially toasted with lots of butter!

You will need:

• 400g strong white bread flour
• 1 tsp. dried yeast, added to 150ml warm water, with a pinch of sugar, left for 10 minutes
• the seeds of 10 cardamom pods, bashed up
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed up
• sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

To make your bread:

1. Sieve the flour into a bowl, add your salt and make a well.00
2. Add the yeast mixture, bananas and cardamon seeds to the well.
3. Mix with a wooden spoon until it’s all combined, then knead with your hands. Add more flour if it’s too sticky – mine was as the bananas were big!
4. Cover and leave to prove for 2 hours.
5. Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and sprinkle a little flour.
6. Preheat your oven to 220 degrees C.
7. Knead your dough again then put it on the lined baking sheet and attempt to plait it.
8. If your dough-plaiting isn’t great, don’t worry, mine wasn’t either but it will taste fine.
9. Cover and leave it to prove again, I left mine for about half an hour.
10. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, bake for 10 minutes, reduce to 200 degrees C and bake for about 15 minutes more.

Enjoy your delicious bread!

Recipe adapted from Best-Ever Bread Cookbook.