Recipe Review: Brazil & Banana Bread

We've had a couple of bananas which were past their best kicking round the kitchen for the last few days so I decided to put them out of their misery by making some kind of banana bread. There are loads of recipes on the BBC Good Food website but I went with the brazil & banana bread purely because it only required 2 bananas and that's all I had!

Pros

• Good for making with children - there's crumbling, mashing and easy mixing
• Easy to make, but make sure to read through the method carefully first or simplify it as per my suggestion
• The recipe says it can be frozen (everyone should have emergency cake!)
• The crumble topping is really yummy and a nice finishing touch
• Can easily be made dairy free as the recipe only calls for small quantities of butter and milk which could be easily substituted

Cons

• The method could have been written a bit clearer - I ended up making a mistake
• There was a little unnecessary faff in beating the egg white and sugar together first and then folding in. I slipped up here and just stirred the wet and dry ingredients together in separate bowls which turned out fine, so you can easily leave out this step
• A little too heavy on the brazil nuts for me making it quite crunchy
• Mine took a bit longer to bake than the recipe suggests - more like 50 than 40 mins in my fan oven, and a little longer wouldn't have hurt

Tips

• Keep and eye on the crumble topping as it browns easily and cover with foil towards the end to stop it getting too crispy - it will be much easier to cut
• You don't need to worry with the whisking of the egg white and sugar if you don't want to - I didn't! Plus not doing so means less washing up (oh, to own a dishwasher!)

What I thought...

Slight misunderstanding with the method aside, I really liked this cake - it's yummy and the fact that it's banana means you can pretend it's healthy. The banana and oil also keeps it's nice and moist. However, next time I think I'll use fewer brazil nuts and perhaps slightly more cinnamon as it didn't really come through. I loved the crumble topping though, especially the hint of coconut, so I think I may be recycling that idea in other loaf cakes I make!

Overall a good solid recipe and a nice starting point to play around with and tailor to your own tastes. I will definitely be baking this again, albeit with a few alterations.