Use overripe Bananas to make this delightfully moist, easy to make Banana Nut Loaf, with chopped Hazelnuts and the hint of Nutmeg. Topped with the toffee flavours of Demerara sugar and more chopped hazelnuts.
Why You Will Love This Recipe
You are going to love this recipe because it is so easy to make, it keeps well and more importantly, it eliminates the waste of those overripe bananas that are so often discarded because of the way they look. And yet, Bananas are at their sweetest when they are overripe. So don't waste them.
How to Freeze Bananas
Bananas seem to turn brown and overripe in the blink of an eye. So why not peel them cut them into chunks and freeze them. You can open freeze them by laying the chunks of bananas on a tray in the freezer until they are frozen solid. Or you can place the chunks directly into a freezer back with a label of how many bananas are in there.
Freezing and labelling them this way is ideal for making this particular Banana Nut Loaf recipe as you can take out the bananas to defrost knowing you have the correct number of bananas.
Ingredients and Notes
Banana Bread Ingredients: A full list and quantities can be found in the recipe card at the bottom of this post. If you wish to bypass all the step by step instructions, click the Jump to Recipe Card at the top of this post.
For the Cake
- Butter - Use room temperature butter. Margerine is fine, but it often contains more water than butter and vegetable oil, so will give a slightly different taste and texture.
- Soft brown sugar - Caster sugar is fine, but soft brown sugar gives a nice slightly nutty/toffee flavour to this cake. It's something you will not get using white sugar.
- Eggs - Medium sized and lightly beaten
- White Spelt Flour - Spelt Flour is an ancient grain often used to make bread, pastry and cakes. It has a very slight nutty flavour. You can use plain flour if you wish.
- Plain Flour - Sieved to remove any lumps
- Baking Powder - this is a raising agent and is needed as the flour does not contain any raising agent of any kind.
- Ground Nutmeg - Any ground spice is fine such as Mixed spice or perhaps cinnamon
- Hazelnuts - Or any other nut is fine such as Walnuts or Pecan Nuts. Finely chopped, although it doesn't matter if there are a few large nuts remaining.
- Bananas - Medium to Large is fine, the riper the better as they will have the sweetest flavour.
For the Topping
- Chopped Hazelnuts as above - Other nuts are fine.
- Demerara sugar - This sugar has larger crystals and is ideal as a topping for cakes.
How to Make This Banana Nut Loaf: Step by Step
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 900g loaf tin with baking parchment. Mash the bananas and leave them to one side until needed. Do not leave them too long or they will oxidize and become black.
Beat together the butter and sugar until well mixed and lighter in colour with a creamy texture. An electric mixer will make the job a lot easier and quicker. Keep the mixer going and gradually add the eggs a little at a time, adding a little flour to help prevent curdling.
Sieve the flours, ground nutmeg and baking powder together before adding to the butter sugar mixture followed by the mashed bananas and chopped hazelnuts. Mix until well combined. Scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go along.
Pour the cake batter into the prepared 900g loaf tin. Scatter the top with demerara sugar and chopped hazelnuts. Bake in the centre of the oven for approx 60 minutes, or until baked, testing the centre of the cake with a skewer until it comes out clean. Check the cake after about 55 mins to ensure you are not over or under baking.
Leave in the tin for 10 – 15 minutes to cool a little before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely. This will also make slicing a lot easier although it does taste nice while a little warm.
Serve on its own, with butter or honey. It will keep well for a couple of days in an airtight container and will freeze too if well wrapped. See my notes below. Bring back to room temperature before serving.
FAQ's and Notes
Banana Bread and Banana Loaves will freeze really well. Wrap well in baking parchment and freezer bag or container. To avoid waste, you could also freeze a Banana Loaf in individual slices bring out a slice each time you need one.
Spices that pair well with Bananas are Cinnamon, Nutmeg, All Spice, Mixed Spice and Gloves all go well with Banana flavour. A variety of chopped nuts work well too.
Peel the bananas and cut them into thick slices. Place them into a small labelled freezer bag with the date and how many bananas it contains.
Banana Nut Loaf
Ingredients
- 150 g butter softened
- 150 g soft brown sugar
- 2 eggs lightly beaten
- 125 g White spelt flour
- 100 g plain flour
- ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg or mixed spice
- 100 g hazelnuts finely chopped
- 2 large bananas lightly mashed
Topping
- 1 tablespoon approx. 10g chopped Hazelnuts
- 1 tablespoon approx. 10g demerara sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 900g loaf tin with baking parchment. Mash the bananas and leave to one side until needed. But not too long or they will oxidize.
- Beat together the butter and sugar until well mixed and lighter in colour with a creamy texture. An electric mixer will make the job a lot easier and quicker.
- Keep the mixer going and gradually add the eggs a little at a time, adding a little flour to help prevent curdling.
- Sieve the flours, ground nutmeg and baking powder together before adding to the butter sugar mixture followed by the mashed bananas and chopped hazelnuts. Mix until well combined. Scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go along.
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared 900g loaf tin. Scatter the top with the demerara sugar and chopped hazelnuts.
- Bake in the centre of the oven for approx 60 minutes, or until baked, testing the centre of the cake with a skewer until it comes out clean. It's a good idea to check the cake after its ¾ baked to ensure you are not overbaking and judge how much longer it may need.
- When baked, take out of the oven and leave in the tin for 10 - 15 minutes to cool a little before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.
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