Everyone who develops recipes will eventually try their hand at creating a banana bread. I’ve always been a bit meh about banana bread, found it a little boring, but hallelujah, I think I’m a convert now! May I say so, but this lucky creation of mine is a bit of a winner… Let me tell you why I think so.
The magic ingredient
This may not be something new, but have you ever tried to add ricotta to your banana bread? No? Me neither. Until tonight. Had some in the fridge that I wanted to use up before it went off, so I thought what’s the worse thing that could happen, let’s just make a banana bread with it. I literally just emptied the rest of the container into the rest of the ingredients, wondering if 150g was too much, but as it turns out, all the stars aligned and it added just the right amount of moisture to the dough.
To be honest, if you’re on a diet, this one may not be for you. This banana bread is a little decadent, because I threw in all the goodies, emptied all the half open packets of stuff that I could find into it. Had some choc chips. In they went. Had some walnuts. Yup, let’s use them. The last bit of oats in the bag? If it makes you believe it makes this healthier, sure!
A word about the bananas
Anyone who’s ever made banana bread will probably be able to tell you to use the real brown bananas. The ones you’d normally throw out because they’re kind of gross to eat just like that. Now you may of course do this for this recipe, and you will get a great result, however if you don’t have bananas that are on the verge of demise, those yellow ones that are just starting to get little brown spots work just as well. I actually prefer those. They are not quite as sweet, but still mash up nicely. Experiment. See how it goes, which banana flavour your prefer. and let me know below 🙂
On that note, happy baking!
Ricotta banana bread
Ingredients
- 60 g butter softened
- 120 g castor sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg large
- 150 g ricotta
- 3 bananas ripe
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 275 g plain flour
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 50 g oats
- 60 g chocolate chips dark
- 60 g walnuts
- 1 banana cut in half, to press into the top
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- With and electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until pale and smooth.
- Add vanilla, the egg and the ricotta to the bowl and blend until no lumps remain.
- Mash the bananas and mix into the wet ingredients.
- In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, oats and salt. Use a spatula to carefully fold the dry ingredients into the wet. As soon as the mass comes together, add choc chips and walnuts. Do not over mix! The dough will be lumpy and that's ok.
- Fill a lined baking tin with the dough, and lightly press the two banana halves, cut side up, into the dough. Bake for 50-55min until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
- Enjoy warm with butter or whipped cream or ice cream.
