Banana Bread with a twist for the banana monster

 

Our family is divided over bananas . The son and I hate it but the husband has to have at least one banana a day . He goes to the point of throwing a tantrum if we do not have bananas at home.  My mother is also the same . 

Growing up , we had bananas growing in the backyard. In our culture , we put every part of the banana tree (or is it a plant?) to use.  We eat the fruit, the stem , the flower and the root. The leaves are steamed to make it soft and non-tearable and then used to pack food. Think about an ethnic or old world ziplock / aluminium foil. The smell of food wrapped in softened/steamed banana leaves is so aromatic it makes my mouth water. We bake spiced fish in banana leaves ... that tastes out of the world. 

We also make a fried sweet dumpling out of rice flour and overripe bananas called the unniappams. We almost never bake banana breads because overripe bananas are always reserved for unniappams and because we do not appreciate the flavor of cinnamon in sweets as much as others do. However , last week we had just returned from a long drive and my online grocery order had bananas which turned out to be overripe. I did not have the patience or energy to stand by the burner and fry unniappams so I made banana bread instead which became a hit. 

The difference I made from a regular banana bread was that I reduced cinnamon to a pinch and added vanilla and cardamom instead. The result was something we loved. 

I adapted this recipe from : https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/best-banana-bread-recipe/ but changed it to suit our taste.

Ingredients

• 3/4 stick Butter

• 3 overripe Bananas

• 2 eggs

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups All Purpose Flour

• 1 cup Sugar

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• A pinch of salt (if butter is unsalted)

• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon or a very small stick of cinnamon

• 1 Cardamon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease a loaf pan with butter or non-stick spray .

3. Powder the cinammon stick and cardamom in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle.

4. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon/cardamom powder.

5. Microwave the stick of butter and add the bananas to it and mash with a fork.

6. Add the egg and vanilla. Mix it until it comes together.

7. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together so that you cannot see streaks of flour.

8. Pour the batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 45-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.