Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

I’ve never been a big fan of banana desserts or baked goods of any kind, with the one exception of my mum’s banana cake. She makes it with whole wheat flour and it truly is the best banana cake I’ve ever had, and also the only one I’ll now eat as an adult. This past week my work office had some bananas that nobody wanted as they had reached that awful too-ripe-to-even-consider-eating stage. I won’t even eat a banana once it gets spots on it; it has to be only just ripe for me to enjoy it. Anyway, rather than throw the bananas out I offered to take them and bake something with them. I knew I didn’t want to make a cake so I opted for this cinnamon swirl banana bread recipe I found. You can’t go wrong with cinnamon, especially at this time of year. The resulting bread was very moist thanks to the sour cream and the cinnamon and brown sugar dressed up an otherwise standard banana bread recipe. This bread is great at breakfast time.

Ingredients:

Banana bread:

2 cups all-purpose flour (white or whole wheat)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 & 1/2 cups very ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)
1/3 cup sour cream (or you can use Greek yoghurt)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cinnamon swirl:

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 & 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Glaze:

1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon heavy cream or milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit (175 degrees celsius). Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the mashed banana, sour cream and vanilla. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients, taking care not to over-mix. The batter will be thick.

3. Spoon half the batter into the loaf pan. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Top with remaining batter. Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes in the pan on a wire rack. Remove from pan and cool completely.

4. Make the glaze by sifting the confectioners sugar and combining it with the cream. You can add more sugar to get the desired thickness. Drizzle glaze over banana bread. The bread will stay fresh at room temperature for up to 10 days in an airtight container.