Banana Bread with Pecans and Dark Chocolate

Well done, Giulia! So far, I have kept the promise of baking and sharing a new recipe every week. I’ve been busy all weekend, then spent two days in Germany for work, but luckily yesterday I had the opportunity to bake as I decided to work from home.

Working from home, also knows as: do your job, the laundry, bake a cake, photograph it, clean the bathroom, go to Tesco, make lunch, wash the dishes, write a blog post…you get the point, right? Working from home means adding house chores to your daily job! I am lucky to be able to do it every now and then, but I find it hard to focus on my job when I get so easily distracted by the million things that need to be done at home.

Anyway, back to baking, I have wanted to make Banana Bread for a long time. I received this recipe from Shelley of Un’Americana a Roma, an amazing American woman crazy enough to have chosen to live in Rome! I love reading her blog and learning about my own cultural background through her posts.

One day, months ago, Shelley tweeted about making Banana Bread and so I asked her for the recipe. Yesterday I finally tried it.

Incidentally, Shelley was also baking a loaf of Banana Bread, in Rome miles away from me. I loved the fact that our kitchens were filled with the same amazing smell of cake and bananas!

I also decided to add pecans and dark chocolate to the banana bread for extra texture and flavours. It was a good decision!

Ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 115g unsalted butter, softened
• 110g brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 525g (4/5) ripe bananas
• 50g pecans, roughly chopped
• 50g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• nutmeg powder
• cinnamon powder

Preparation

Pre-heat the oven at 175°C. Grease a 2lb loaf fin.

In a bowl, mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt. In another bowl, mix the butter with brown sugar, then add the eggs. Mash the bananas with a fork and add them to the mix. I used an electric whisk to mix these ingredients.

Add together the contents of the two bowls. Add the chopped pecans and dark chocolate. Pour the batter into the loaf tin, sprinkle with nutmeg, cinnamon and brown sugar on top.

Cook in the oven for about 60-65 minutes; use a tooth-stick to check if the cake is well cooked. Cool down in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer the banana bread onto a wire rack.

Store in an airtight container for 3-4 days.