AN EXTRA SPECIAL BANANA BREAD

I love banana bread but it's something I rarely eat, so I decided to try my hand at making my own. But I didn't want to make just any old banana bread, I couldn't decide between making one with walnuts or with dark chocolate, so I made one with both. This recipe for banana bread with walnut and dark chocolate chunks is slightly adapted from a Paul Hollywood recipe.

Recipe makes enough mixture to fill two loaf tins to roughly three quarters full

You Will Need:
-Three overripe bananas
-250g caster sugar
-2 eggs
-140g butter
-250g plain flour
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-100g walnut chopped into chunks (not too small)
-100g dark chocolate chopped into chunks (any size but not overly large)

To Make:
-Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
-Line two loaf tins with baking paper. Greasing the tins with butter first will help the baking paper to stick.
-Mash the bananas and sugar together in a mixing bowl with the back of a fork. The banana will look lumpy but that's okay.
-Add the two eggs and whisk together. The mixture will look overly wet but that's also okay.
-Add the butter and whisk again.
-Sift the flour and baking powder and fold in using a wooden spoon.
-At this point, if you haven't already, chop the walnuts and the dark chocolate into chunks. Don't chop the walnuts too small or your final product will feel grainy and weird (I learnt that on Bake Off). Unlike what I did, it would probably be better to chop the walnuts and dark chocolate before you start.
-Add the chopped walnuts and fold into the mixture.
-Add the dark chocolate chunks and fold into the mixture.
-Add the mixture to the tin and fill until about three quarters full as the mixture will rise slightly in the oven.
-Cook for an 45-50 minutes. Yes that long, I thought it was a weird timing but all the recipes say an hour, though mine didn't need that. You can see from the pictures that it looks ever so slightly burnt on the top but that's probably more due to the oven shelf maybe being a bit too high that the timing.
-Leave to cool.

Rosie