Banana Cardamom Bread

I've made this cakey bread three times now. Something about this recipe required me to become a little obsessed with getting it just right so for the last 3 weekends we've had a banana bread of varying quality in the cake tin.

This is a cakey banana bread, it still has the crumb that a good sponge should, it isn't too dense, but it holds up well and can be spread with jam. The first two versions I made were much too dense - 2 bananas or 4 bananas is too much. 1 banana is just right! Version one had too little cardamom in it (2 pods), version two had too many (6 pods). The magic version had just one banana, and then the crushed seeds of 4 cardamom pods.

I only had bread flour in, which worked fine in this bread, and it is a bread after all. This makes one tall loaf that will cut in to lots of slices for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

1 banana - approx 100g

100g softened unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

pinch of salt

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

crushed seeds of 4 cardamom pods

1 tsp baking powder

250g bread flour


Heat your oven to gas mark 3 / fan 170 / electric 180. Mash the banana in a large bowl and then add the butter - mix together well and then stir in the sugar and salt. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing in with each addition. Then add in the vanilla and crushed seeds of cardamom. Sift in your flour and baking powder and fold in carefully.

Bake for around 40 minutes on the middle shelf til golden brown on top and cooked throughout. Leave to cool before removing from the tin and slicing.

You can eat this for breakfast, I reckon, it is totally fine. And I did.