I was absolutely delighted to get so many fantastic entries for the Banana Bread Bakeoff. I was a little worried as to whether I would get much of a response-it’s a little like having a party and hoping everyone will show!

Here is a round up of the fabulously inventive Banana Bread recipes I received. Yes that’s right, all 79 of them! From the diversity and inventiveness of the recipes, it just looked to me like the Ultimate Banana Bread collection came to my party. It seems like Banana Bread is not just Banana bread but the potential to be so much more than a plain loaf. For those who don’t have a blog but are still devoted foodies, I’ve published their recipes, for those with blogs, I’ve linked to the story itself so that any Banana Bread lover can have the perfect recipe at their fingertips. Enjoy the viewing but a word or warning, have a piece of Banana bread ready or at least some bananas ripening in a paper bag. After seeing them all you’ll be ever so glad.

At first I thought I could bake them all but when we got to 60 I knew that a poll was the best way to go because if I baked 79 Banana Breads it would take me 2 months to bake them all and almost 2 years to eat them and would put me off bananas for life! So once you’ve drooled through the incredible list of entries, please vote for your favourite Banana Bread, the one you feel should win the bake off and of course feel free to comment on why you thought it was your favourite in the comments section. The prize is of course, a DIY cupcake set that I’ve put together featuring 25 mini pleated souffle cups (like the ones I used here), 12 royal icing flowers, a cake tester and sprinkles. Shipped to anywhere in the world!

Thanks again to all of the wonderful bakers that took the time to enter their precious Banana Babies, you all deserve a prize as far as I am concerned! And if I’ve inadvertently missed anyone out, please email me at info{AT}notquitenigella{dot}com.

Love,

NQN
xxx

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I know my first instinct when I have ripe bananas is to make banana bread but I was wondering what else I could make that wasn’t as cakey, but a more luscious dessert. I had some sponge cake leftover from making my panda cupcakes from cutting out the centres so I thought I might use it for a trifle.

Bananas and caramel sauce or butterscotch sauce are simply one of my favourite ever combinations. My Bannoffee addiction is testament to that. This is quite Bannoffee like just without the biscuit crust. It’s so soft and smooth and rapturous that it is quite hard to stop at one. You’d have to have 1 and a half at least. And I’d most certianly suggest making double the amount of sauce for you to have plain with bananas later.

Be sure to dip deep and get some rum or dessert wine soaked sponge or it may be a little strong when you reach the bottom. Unless of course, that’s precisely the point!

Banana Butterscotch trifle

Ingredients (serves 4 cups)

• 1 cup vanilla custard (bought or made using directions on packet)
• 150ml thickened cream
• small splash of rum or sweet sticky dessert wine for each cup (optional)
• 150g packet cake cut into smaller 3cm pieces
• 3 medium bananas, peeled, sliced
• 75g slivered almonds, toasted

Butterscotch sauce

• 75g butter, cubed
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 150ml thickened cream

Method

1. Make butterscotch sauce: Place butter, sugar and cream into a saucepan over low heat. Stir until butter has melted. Simmer gently for 5 minutes without stirring. Remove from heat. Allow to cool for 20 minutes or until thickened.

2. Whip cream with 1 tablespoon of sugar

3. Get 4 x 250ml cups and add sponge at the bottom. Splash a small amount of rum on sponge (about 1 teaspoon). Layer with butterscotch sauce, then thinly sliced banana pieces (about 5 pieces). Then add custard, more bananas and butterscotch sauce. Then top with whipped cream, a little more butterscotch sauce and toasted flaked almonds (cooled).

4. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours (overnight if the sponge is very stale).

***NEWSFLASH*** NQN is holding a Banana Bread Bake off event! Bake your Best Banana Bread recipe and enter this event here!

It is true that there are at least 1001 recipes for Banana Bread. It is also true that some of them will claim to be the best ever recipe. Whilst I can’t say that I am remotely qualified to be the judge of the best banana bread, I can say that I am somewhat qualified to eat them. So I decided that with a surplus of bananas (in Australia April-June and August-October are the best times to eat them), I’d make four different kinds of Banana Bread. The first one was of course from Nigella, the second a standby good old banana bread recipe I found in a Woolworths Fresh magazine, the third from the Taste website by Janelle Bloom (yes, I know she microwaves everything but this recipe did not involve the microwave and I was persuaded by the coconut flavour in it) and the last one is a Chocolate Banana bread by Karen Martini from the Sunday Life magazine.

1. Nigella’s Banana bread

I was woken at 7am this morning by a sudden urge to bake. Actually no, it was the birds outside and their loud morning calls that woke me but not knowing what to do with myself, I decided to bake. It was at the urging and from the favorable reviews on Vogue’s food forum that I sought to make Nigella’s banana bread. I was also influenced by the bananas that were ripening aromatically in my kitchen that were the perfect size for this recipe. The addition of brandy or rum soaked sultanas and walnuts makes this a little fancier and showier than your normal Banana Bread. I call this the Marcia Brady of the Banana Breads.

I made this a little rougher textured that I would like in that I didn’t chop the walnuts too finely and unlike most baked goods, I found this really came into its own when it was cold, sliced and buttered. When it was straight out of the oven, it just didn’t appeal to me as much.

• 100g sultanas
• 75ml bourbon or dark rum (or apple or orange juice if you’re wanting it to be non alcoholic)
• 175g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• half teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• half teaspoon salt
• 125g unsalted butter, melted
• 150g sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 4 small, very ripe bananas (about 300g weighed without skin), mashed
• 60g chopped walnuts
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 23 x 13 x 7cm loaf tin, buttered and floured or with a paper insert

1. Put the sultanas and rum or bourbon in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the sultanas have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.

2. Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3 and get started on the rest. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a medium-sized bowl and, using your hands or a wooden spoon, combine well. In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended.

3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts, drained sultanas and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit.

4. Scrape into the loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1 to 1 and a quarter hours. When it’s ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish. Leave in the tin on a rack to cool, and eat thickly or thinly sliced, as you prefer.

Makes 8-10 slices

From How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

2. Woolworth’s Fresh Banana Bread

This is more your plain Jane, nothing fancy like walnuts or brandy soused sultanas. I see it more as the Jan Brady of Banana Bread. Nigella’s would undoubtedly be Marcia Marcia Marcia. That doesn’t mean Jan isn’t good but she just isn’t as flashy but it also means that she is less work. It’s soft and fine grained but less moist.

Prep: 10 minutes Cooking: 50 minutes Makes: 1 loaf (10-12 slices)

• 1 cup (150g) plain flour
• 1/2 cup (75g) self raising flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 125g butter, melted and cooled
• 2 eggs whisked
• 3-4 ripe bananas, mashed

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Grease and line the base and sides of an 11cms x 21cmsx6cm deep loaf pan.

2. Combine flours, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl. Whisk butter and eggs together. Stir in banana. Spoon into prepared pan. Smooth the surface.

3. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set aside in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Serve spread with butter.

Recipe: Woolworths Fresh magazine

3. Janelle Bloom’s Banana and Coconut Bread

Yes I do know that she is on Ready Steady Cook purporting the merits of Microwaves at every turn but I am willing to overlook this because of the addition of coconut and coconut milk in this Banana bread. This cake is very delicate, moist and light, the lightest of the four and not overly sweet but just sweet enough. Interestingly, there’s no butter in the recipe with the moisture and fat content provided by the coconut milk (I used coconut cream) which produces a lovely moistness. I call this the Mrs Brady-the surprise fox among the hens.

Ingredients (serves 8 )

• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 cup mashed banana (see note)
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease and line a 6cm deep, 10.5cm x 20.5cm (base) loaf pan.

2. Combine coconut, sugar and flour in a large bowl. Using a fork, beat banana, coconut milk, egg and vanilla in a jug. Pour over flour mixture. Gently stir to combine. Spoon mixture into pan. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean.

3. Stand for 10 minutes in pan. Turn onto a wire rack to cool completely. Serve sliced or toasted with butter, jam or cream cheese.

Notes & tips

* Note: Two large or 3 medium-sized ripe bananas will give 1 cup of mashed banana.
* Tip: Banana coconut loaf will keep for 1 week stored in an airtight container.

Source Super Food Ideas - September 2005 , Page 21
Recipe by Janelle Bloom

4. Karen Martini’s Chocolate and Banana Bread

I left the most fiddly one until last. It’s not particularly fiddly when you compare it to a normal cake but it does require creaming and thus the aid of the heavy equipment whereas the other banana breads just needed a bit of luxuriated stirring. I am in two minds about Karen Martini’s recipes, the ones that I have tried have not been great, but the picture of this one was too tempting to not make. As it turns out, mine did not resemble the one in her picture in the slightest (notwithstanding the fact that I forgot to add the banana on top). Hers was a deep, dark chocolate colour on the outside with a glossy coating on top. Mine was more a very light brown and not glossy. Also when cutting it when warm, it wasn’t very dense, I would have liked a note to slice it when it’s cold. So I guess it’s the last Karen Martini recipe for me at least for a while. I like the little notes that Nigella gives and the fact that things turn out as they look in the pictures. As its the most trouble, and a little bit dense, it just has to be Cindy Brady.

• 250g plain flour
• 20g cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 120g butter softened
• 130g raw sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2-4 very large ripe bananas (about 500g, mashed plus 1 extra)
• 60g shredded coconut
• 80g dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to fan-forced 175c (195c conventional)

2. Soft combined flour, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well in between. Add mashed banana and stir until combined. Fold in flour mixture, then add coconut and chocolate chips and stir until well combined.

3. Grease a loaf pan (22×12cms) and line the base with baking paper. Spoon mixture into pan. Slice extra banana and place on top of loaf (arrrgh I forgot the banana on top!). Bake for 65-70 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Recipe from Sunday Life by Karen Martini

I can say that out of the 4, I most liked Janelle Bloom’s Coconut and Banana bread the best followed closely by Nigella’s Banana Bread. I wasn’t so taken by Karen Martini’s Chocolate banana bread as I prefer dessicated to shredded coconut as it’s more delicate. As for the plain Jane Jan Brady Woolworth’s loaf, that was my least favourite in comparison with the others.

However my husband was an entirely different matter altogether. He liked the Woolworths Fresh magazine one the most, followed by Nigella’s, then Karen Martini’s Chocolate Banana bread and then Janelle Bloom’s Coconut banana bread which he said stuck to the roof of his mouth too much for comfort!

Having said that I don’t think that I would chuck any of them out of my bed at night and I found them all, uniformly best served cold with a spread of butter.

OK I know, there seems to be a banana theme running through my blog of late. In something of a war-time like reaction, when I saw bananas at 99c a kilo I overbought tremendously purchasing 4kgs. Having made several banana smoothies and Elvis Presley Peanut Butter and banana sandwiches (there are only so many of these that my husband will eat), I found myself with still plenty left so aside from banana bread and cupcakes, I needed to branch out and find some more banana recipes.

I stuck a whole lot of them in the freezer to use in later baking ventures but as its a hot day today in Sydney I kept thinking of one of my favourite, and now defunct shows, Arrested Development where the Bluth family had a frozen banana stand. I do recall frozen bananas on a stick and a lot of melted chocolate and nuts involved. So with no further ado, I give you a very simple Frozen Banana recipe, apparently given in George Michael’s biography (which has since disappeared from the Fox website).

I promise you, although these aren’t the most photogenic of treats, verging on downright ugly, it will be loved even by the fruit phobic, especially fans of Magnum Almond ice creams!

Bluth’s Frozen Bananas

1. Peel bananas, cut in half, put a chopstick or popsicle stick through the banana, and freeze them.

2. The next day, or at least a few hours later, melt some chocolate in a bowl (I used a 50/50 mix of Lindt milk and dark chocolate), and cut up some nuts (I used almonds).

3. Take frozen banana out and smear melted chocolate on the banana with a knife (dipping the banana in the bowl of chocolate, whilst its fun and makes you feel like a pro, will cause the rest of the chocolate in the bowl to harden so avoid doing this) and sprinkle nuts on it (do this quickly as the chocolate will harden very quickly).

4. Wait just a minute or two for the chocolate to firm up again and enjoy.

P.S. For fans of the show, according to the Bluth sign, frozen bananas can be purchased in three sizes: small ($1.65), medium ($1.85), or large ($2.50) and the Flavors available were: “Original Frozen Banana,” “On the Go-go Banana,” “Double-dipped,” “Giddy-girly,” “George Daddy,” and “Simple Simon.”

I sometimes wonder, is fear of a sandwich a normal thing? When I first read about this sandwich in Nigella’s Trashy chapter in Nigella Bites (my favourite chapter as a lover of kitsch) I actually become a little frightened at the idea of a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. Several years on and thinking about it more and I decided that it wasn’t such madness after all. Time had indeed lessened my initial revulsion, in fact when I read variations of it suggesting the addition of bacon, so much so was my 180 degree transformation that I though “Wow, that sounds great together!”.

Recently we made the mistake of purchasing a loaf of plastic white bread (they were out of everything else) and ever since then, it has sat in the freezer gradually dwindling when used in recipes like the Bread and Butter pudding. I have about 1/3 of a loaf left so it seemed only fitting to use it on this sandwich as I’m fairly certain this recipe wouldn’t have used wholemeal or 9 grain.

I added bacon into this sandwich trying it with and without. With the bacon is definitely not as gruesome as it sounds, in fact we both preferred it with bacon as the saltiness perfectly counters the creaminess of the banana and the sweet nuttiness of the peanut butter. Try half a sandwich with and half without if you’re not convinced.

I do recall seeing an episode of Oprah where Lisa Marie hosted a dinner for Oprah and Gail full of The King’s favourite foods and scoff as people may do about his eating habits, if I had access to that delicious sounding food every day, I’d be in a rather untenable position! Gayle’s food adventures are actually among my favourite episodes-if anyone is likely to food blog, its her!

Elvis Presley’s Fried Peanut Butter and Banana sandwich from Nigella Bites

Les not mess around: you want trashy, I’ll give you trashy-I’ll give you the King. This recipe, for want of a better word, comes from a rhinestone gem of a cookbook, Are you hungry Tonight? a collection of his favourite foodstuffs bought on a visit to Graceland many years back, prized ever since and a delight from cover to cover. Even my most recent addition to a library already bursting with bad-taste titles, Liberace Cook!, can’t lose him his crown.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that a smearing of a couple of slabs of white bred with peanut butter and mashed banana, sandwiching the lot bulgingly together and then frying it in butter would be at best, revolting. But that’s where you’d be wrong. I have no particular fondness for peanut butter, or bananas for that matter, and a downright shuddering aversion to eating them cooked, but what a genius that man was. This sandwich is a wondrous thing, gloriously exemplifying what cooking is all about: the whole is so much intriguingly, confoundingly more than the sum of its parts. It really works. I wouldn’t turn one down at any time, although, true to form, there is a certain kamikaze calorie intake involved not always to be calmy countenanced-but for a handover, to combat seediness and restore the fragmenting self, its particular perfection: it doesn’t merely sustain, it resuscitates.

Believe it or not, the quantities below appear in edited, attenuated form. I honour the King but I can’t be him

Ingredients

• 1 small ripe banana
• 2 slices white bread
• 2 scant tablespoons smooth peanut butter (don’t use extra smooth)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• (Plus I added 1 rasher of streaky bacon)

1. Mash or slice the banana.

2. Lightly toast the bread, and then spread the peanut butter on one piece and the banana on the other. Sandwich together then fry in the butter, turning once, until each side is golden-brown. At the same time fry the rasher of bacon. Remove to a plate, cut the sandwich carefully in half on the diagonal and eat.

Serves 1

From Nigella Bites by Nigella Lawson