Best Banana Bread

In the morning after gulping his breakfast in one go my older son was forlornly looking around the kitchen, trying to find if any of the cake was left from the baptism day. I asked him if he wanted a banana cakey bread, and that I'd bake one when he is in school. He kissed me as a Thank you.
Bananas in the fruit bowl were turning spottier and more brown. At this stage, nobody fancied them. Yet they were perfect for the banana bread. I bake a very good banana cake, but was looking for a slightly different version. Of course, Pinterest is full of The Best Banana Bread recipes. I have adapted the recipe for banana bread found on BBC Food.

Banana bread
Ingredients:
3 very ripe medium sized bananas
175g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
1tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt (optional)
285g self-raising flour
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
2tbsp ground hazelnuts
2tbsp Greek style yogurt, topped up with milk to make 70ml liquid
120g butter, melted
for the icing mix 4 heaped tbsp of icing sugar with lemon juice
decorate with banana chips

Mash ripe bananas with a fork and mix with the caster sugar. Beat two eggs in, add the baking powder and a pinch of salt. Add flour, cinnamon and hazelnuts. Keep stirring. In a measuring jug top up two tablespoons of yogurt with milk and add to the cake batter. Finally add the melted butter. Mix well and pour into a greased bread tin.
Place the tin in the oven preheated to 180C. Bake for 50+ minutes. Check with a wooden toothpick if it comes clean. If the bread is not quite ready but started to brown a bit too much on the top, cover the tin with the foil and bake for another 10 minutes or so.
Once cooked, let it cool a bit before taking out of the tin.
Mix the icing sugar with enough lemon juice to get a medium runny consistency and spread over the banana bread. Decorate with banana chips.

I usually bake with Anchor butter, which is my staple for cake baking. If it's a cake, it has to be butter in our household. I think I had enough of margarine baking in my childhood. This time I wanted to try President butter (I received a voucher for a free pack in the last Degustabox). I do buy President cheeses but don't remember if I have tried their butter before. It's creamy and smooth, and worked very well in baking. I used an unsalted butter.

Typically I would add a couple of tablespoons of ground almonds when I bake my cakes, but this time rummaging through my kitchen shelves, I could only find a pack of ground hazelnuts. This pack has clearly been at the back for quite a while. I tried the nuts, and they tasted just fine, so in they went instead of the almonds. As that definitely counts as part of a kitchen clearout, I'm adding this recipe to #KitchenClearout linky on Madhouse Family Reviews hosted by inventive Cheryl who is as bad "organised" as me when it comes to kitchen shelves. Well, actually she is much more organised than me. I mean it without inverted commas. How about a box of flavoured coffee which is 12 years old? I keep it for sentimental reasons. One day I will open it, and it will be an experiment.

The theme of this month #SimplyEggcellent linky run by Dom at Belleau Kitchen is breads, pastries and puddings, and I'm joining in with my banana bread.