Banana Chocolate and Pecan Loaf

Hi everyone I’m back from a lovely restful weekend at the lodge. The weather wasn’t the best and it rained on and off but we made the most of it. When the weather was dry we picked more cooking and eating apples, chopped up wood to bring back for our open fires and enjoyed our walks around the woodland and open field we have at the lodge. It was a very productive weekend and I came home with 2 gorgeous new tablecloths and matching napkins that my mother in law made with the fabric I recently bought from eBay. My Lemon Curd and Blueberry Loaf Cake was thoroughly enjoyed and didn’t last beyond Sunday evening, it’s definitely a must bake! In addition I also made this scrumptious Banana Chocolate and Pecan Loaf, I couldn’t go away for the weekend and leave the sad looking bananas in my fruit bowl. I adapted this loaf to my taste and added chocolate instead of raisins and Total Greek Yoghurt instead of buttermilk. The end result was a moist, chocolatey, nutty and very yummy banana loaf.

Banana Chocolate and Pecan Loaf

Ingredients

100g softened unsalted butter

140g light muscovado sugar

2 large eggs

3 large ripe bananas, mashed (about 450g/1lb total weight)

50g pecans, roughly chopped

50g milk chocolate, chopped (or raisins)

150ml buttermilk or Total Greek Yoghurt

280g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven to fan 160C/ conventional 180C/gas 4. Butter a 20 x 13cm loaf tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar with an electric whisk until creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time (don't worry that the mixture looks curdled). Stir in the mashed bananas, pecans, chocolate and buttermilk/Greek yoghurt.

Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda on top of the banana mixture, then fold in until evenly mixed, taking care not to overmix. Spoon into the prepared tin and level the top.

Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes until a skewer pushed in the centre comes out almost, but not quite, dry. Remove from the oven and leave for about 10 minutes, then turn it out of the tin on to a cooling rack to cool.