blender banana bread

If I had a dollar for every banana that went brown in my fruit bowl, I’d have enough money to travel back in time and help Tracey Chapman out of whatever financial difficulty she was facing when she sold her beautiful ballad to be turned into a bubblegum commercial.

My girls are resolute in their rejection of ripe bananas. The very moment the spot to skin ration reaches 0.0002:1 they abjectly refuse to eat them. This is an unfortunate situation when you live in Queensland; in the heat of summer bananas ripen in the car on the way home from the shops.

If your kids, like mine, hate brown bananas as much as Donald Trump hates, well.… everyone, fear not! I have the solution: blender banana bread.

Each week, after I stop muttering about starving children in the third-world, I peel the overripe bananas in the fruit bowl and freeze them. (Seriously peel them before you freeze them. Trust me; the alternative is too much mess and too much effort.)

Blender Banana Bread

Ingredients

2 ½ cups plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
100g pecans
1 cup sugar
75g butter
1 egg
3 bananas
½ cup milk

Here’s where our paths diverge. If you have a super-duper high powered blender, skip to the next paragraph. If you have a normal garden-variety blender, this is the method for you.

garden-variety blender method:

In a mixing bowl add the sifted flour, baking powder and salt.
Add the pecans to the blender and pulse until roughly chopped, add them to the mixing bowl.
In the blender, cream the butter and sugar. Then add the bananas, eggs and milk. Blend until combined, then pour onto the dry ingredients. Mix together, the pour into a prepared 20cm loaf tin. Bake at 160C for 90 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out cleanly.

super-duper high powered blender (aka the thermo) method:

Pulse the pecans until roughly chopped. Set aside in a mixing bowl.
Blitz the flour, baking powder and salt then add to the mixing bowl.
Cream together the sugar and butter, then add the bananas and blitz. Add the egg and milk and blitz again. By this stage the mix should look and smell like a giant banana smoothie.
Return the dry ingredients to the blender and process (about speed 3) until combined.
Pour into a prepared 20cm loaf tin. Bake at 160C for 90 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out cleanly.

Blender banana bread is best enjoyed spread with butter (or even better in my opinion, toasted and buttered). Please enjoy responsibly.

do your kids hate brown bananas?
does anyone hate anything as much as Donald Trump hates everything?