I’ve been meaning to post lots of exciting things about lots of fascinating subjects, but, er, well, I’m brain-dead due to lack of sleep and a particularly un-scintillating copy-editing job which finishes today, so all I can come up with is the very lovely loaf recipe which I tried out yesterday, in need of a little something to distract from the aforementioned copy horrors. It’s a Cranks recipe, and I can honestly say that, other than the peanut butter and apple soup (which was never really going to work, was it, and if I’d read it in any other book, I wouldn’t even have paused for thought before damning it as the very worst sort of heresy), they are all fillers and no killers (see what I did there?).

So, here goes.

Spiced banana and apple loaf
Ingredients
1 apple, cored, peeled and grated
2 small bananas, mashed
Zest of a large lemon
2 oz sultanas (mixed dried fruit would work well, too)
1 lb of strong (bread) flour (I used a wholemeal spelt I just happened to have kicking about)
2 oz dark brown sugar (I probably used four, if we’re honest, because my hand slipped when sticking it in the bowl)
1 t(b)sp of mixed spice, cinnamon, nutmeg etc.
1 tsp quick-acting yeast
¼ of a pint of warm water

Then…
Pop about 4 oz of the flour in a bowl with the water and the yeast, and stick it somewhere warm to get nice and frothy. While that’s doing its thing, mash the bananas in with the grated apple and the lemon and the sultanas. When you’ve achieved a suitably frothy yeasty concoction, sling that in with the fruit, and add the other ingredients to form a dough-like consistency. Knead it for a bit, until it’s nicely formed, and then into an oiled (or silicone) bread tin with it, and off to a nice warm place to rise for about an hour. (Because I was using antiquated yeast and bread flour damp enough to have lumps, mine didn’t rise masses, but hey – let’s not judge.) Stick the oven on to about 200°c, and bake the blighter for about thirty minutes. As with ordinary bread, it’s done when it’s brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped in a peremptory manner on the base.
V. nice with a spot of butter on it, and works extremely well as toast. The funny thing is that, unlike many other banana-featuring recipes of my ken, this one hides its banananess extraordinarily well – you wouldn’t know they’d even been near it, never mind having moved in, wholesale.

Coming in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future:

- fat bells (and more dready loveliness) – a more successful experience, so thanks to all who commented on our first attempt;

- another ginormous-needles-make-fast-work knitted cardigan for the small girl, just, predictably, as the weather gets warmer;

- ponderings on when to sit and think about things, and the advantages and disadvantages thereof, and when to just get the fuck on with something and hope for the best.