Toasted Banana Bread

What a revelation I had this week at one of my favourite coffee shops. I ordered some banana bread with my coffee and I was asked whether I needed some butter. I have never had butter on it before but I thought instead of dismissing the concept out-of-hand I asked for the butter to be served on the side.

Once the bread was served to me I was surprised to find the bread had been toasted. I guess the reason I was so surprised is that I have always really considered that banana bread was a misnoma and it is really a a cake or better served as a muffin and when asked thought it better accompanied cream cheese frosting than butter. I mean there isn't any yeast in banana bread that I know of - is there?

I figure actually toasting banana bread is not a surprise to many , but for me the uninitiated into the joys of actually toasting the banana bread I have to say it was one of the most satisfying foodie revelations I have had to date.

So yesterday I decided to track down a very basic banana bread recipe, baked it last night, toasted it under my Breville flat sandwich maker, dusted it with some icing sugar and served it with some vanilla ice-cream, maple syrup and toasted walnuts.

For the purpose of this post this morning I decided to simply toast the bread and present it in much the same way as it was served to me earlier in the week. On that day, the toasted BB made a very satisfying 10.30am morning tea especially when I hadn't the time for breakfast earlier that day and portion control over the butter meant it was relatively healthy.

I think the recipe below is quite excellent - as it is low fat. I decided to use the simplest and most dense version I could find with no nuts or other embellishments. Indeed I noticed that many of the reviewers for the BB decided to take this super healthy version and add a naughty thing to it, like chocolate chips or healthier things like nuts!

From my experience this BB recipe could do with extra moisture and recommend adding more mashed banana or apple sauce.

Having read all of the reviews for the recipe I also think based on the majority of them that next time I would do the following:
* halve the amount of sugar or substitute white sugar with brown sugar
* use half wholemeal and half white flour
*add pecans or walnuts

Basic low fat Banana Bread from this site :
2 cups plain flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 170° c.
2. With some canola cooking spray I sprayed the inside of a loaf tin.
3. Sift the flours and salt together and set aside.
4. I really don't like the 1/2 cup measure for things so I cut a piece of butter that looked approximately like 1/2 cup and with a hand beater beat the butter and sugar and vanilla together until light and creamy (approx 3 minutes - longer for me due to not letting the butter soften).
5. I then beat in one egg at a time beating well after each egg.
6. Then beat in the yoghurt (I only had the kids full fat vanilla) and the mashed banana.
7. After that I gently mixed the flour through the creamy banana mix.
8. Pour into loaf tin and bake for approximately one hour.

Measures of success:
*Inserting a wooden skewer that comes out clean proving it is baked through.
*A big crack down the middle of the loaf due to the operation of the baking soda
*Light to medium browning with crispy outside crust which will soften the next day

Other thoughts:
*The other versions of the BB from the website sounded fantastic too, coconut would toast very well if added to the recipe.
*I saw that Chocolate and Zucchini had a recipe for BB with Cranberries, I haven't yet found a fresh cranberry but am willing to give the dried versions a go.
*It is worth paying $12.00 a kilo for 4 bananas to try the other versions - those cheaper bananas I posted about earlier are few and far between.
*One of the things I am finding it difficult to succeed in lately, taking a photograph of the finished product without one of my children's hands appearing in it no matter how many times I tell them to wait!