This banana bread is super moist, luscious and packed with flavour. I served it with a lemon drizzle, and although this is optional, I would definitely recommend it. The cake soaks up the drizzle so well and brings it to another level.
Banana bread is a great way to use up overripe bananas, I also found a jar of dates in the back of the cupboard. Dates don’t really go off the quickly but best to use them within 6 months or they tend to dry out. I prefer medjool dates, they’re super soft and caramelly and help keep the texture of the cake so moist. If you only have the drier version lying around, not to worry, we’ll be soaking them in water anyway so those are fine too!
Banana Date Bread with Lemon Drizzle
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading...Ingredients
- Banana bread
- 3-4 bananas (2 cups mashed, overripe)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
- 115g unsalted butter (softened)
- 1 cup brown sugar (packed)
- 2 large eggs (lightly beaten)
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Medjool dates (1.5 cups when unchopped - soaked in warm water and finely chopped)
- Lemon drizzle
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 1 tsp salted butter
Instructions
Banana bread
Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease and flour a regular bread loaf pan.
In a small bowl add the whole dates and soak in hot water, ± 5 minutes, then chop finely.
In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk together thoroughly to blend.
In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer or by hand, beat the butter and sugars for about 3 to 4 minutes until light and fluffy.
Add the lightly beaten eggs and mix well until blended.
Add the mashed bananas and the vanilla extract and beat well until blended.
Add the flour mixture and mix just until combined. Do not overmix.
Fold in the chopped dates.
Pour the mixture into the bread loaf pan, spreading it out evenly with a spatula.
Bake in the oven for 60-70 minutes until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool the banana bread in the pan on a rack for 20 minutes then turn out onto a rack to cool before serving.
Serve with butter, cream cheese, icing or for example lemon drizzle as mentioned below.
Lemon drizzle
Grate the lemon zest in a small sauce pan.
Squeeze the lemon juice into the pan and then add the butter and sugar.
Turn up the heat to medium.
Keep whisking until everything is dissolved making sure there are no lumps.
Bring to a simmer then take off the heat and let cool before serving.
Notes
You can easily freeze banana bread for up to 3 months in an airtight container. I like to slice them ahead of time so I can take out a slice when I'm in the mood. Just let it defrost at room temperature for ± 15 - 20 minutes. In this case I only drizzled half of the cake with the lemon sauce, the other half I sliced and froze.
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