Nici Wickes: Banana, walnut, and sultana loaf cake

Spring is a funny old time for fresh fruit. The apples and pears have been in cool store forever, rhubarb can be temperamental and scarce, and the berries and stone fruit are not nearly ready, so we’re left with the trusty banana.   

I love my banana cake studded with walnuts and sultanas but you can also leave them out if you prefer.  

 

Ingredients 

125g butter, softened  

½ cup sugar  

2 medium eggs  

2 large, ripe bananas, broken into pieces  

Drizzle of golden syrup or maple syrup  

70g walnut pieces   

½ cup sultanas   

2 cups self-raising flour   

½ tsp cinnamon   

¼ tsp baking soda  

2 tbsps plain Greek yoghurt  

Splash of milk if needed – see note  

Method 

Heat oven to 180 C. Grease and line a large loaf tin.  

In a standing mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  

Add a drizzle of golden/maple syrup, the banana pieces, walnuts and sultanas to the creamed mixture. Sift in the self-raising flour, baking soda and cinnamon and gently beat or stir to combine. Don’t over mix but make sure there are no remaining pockets of flour either. Stir in the yoghurt. If it’s too stiff a splash of milk might be useful too.  

Scrape the batter into the tin. Bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when placed in the centre. Leave to cool.  

 

Note 

Having made this loaf cake many times I can attest that sometimes the batter is a little stiff, other times not so. It’s likely due to the size of the eggs, the variance in the temperature of the butter or the thickness of whatever yoghurt I’m using. I aim for a dropping consistency so if it errs on the stiff side, stir in a splash of milk to make it more manageable. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at B.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Twelve to ten. Our cook Nickwick's is here, killeder.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, good morning Jack.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
It is a bit of a weird time of year
when it comes to fresh fruit. Hey, So we're very
much in between seasons for fresh fruit.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
We really are, because the funny thing is is springtime.
You know, you think, oh, everything's going to be flourishing,
but actually the blossoms are still out. The fruit is
just sitting now. For some of our fruits, berries, stone fruit,
we're a long way away from that, I'm afraid to
tell you. And although there are loads of apples and
pears in the supermarket and I do continue to buy
some of them, they really have been in cool store

(00:47):
since last season.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
So they're not great either.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
My rhubarb that should be thriving is sometimes demental, so
I can't rely on it.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
But the good trusty old banana.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Ah, it's always there, isn't it? It is always there? Yeah,
I can, And I can tell you we're in a
household with this even year old boy. It gets through
about three bananas a day by himself. We are very
much relyingt Tom bananas at this time of year.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
I love it. People love them.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
I mean, of course they're an import although we now
grow them in Northland, which is great, but you're.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Right they are.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
They're just always there and kids love them, and so
I think for that reason we sort of can underestimate them.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
But this week I have got for us this.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Beautiful banana, walnut and sultana loafing. So I make it
in a loafton, but I don't want to call it
a banana bread because it seems a little bit more
caky than that, a bit more moist, a little bit
more fluffy. And studying it with the sultanas, they go
all chewy. The walnuts kind of melt a little bit
soft in a little bit. They're really buttery and beautiful,

(01:50):
and the banana is just it's great and look dead easy.
Here we go ovan on one eighty degrees and that's
that's on a fan bake, and I tend to take
it down sort of ten degrees when I actually put
the loaf in there. And then this makes very large loafton,
so you know, so there's small and large loaf to
bakers will know what I mean there. So I do

(02:10):
this in a standing beta, which which means I don't
have to sort of be hands on the whole time.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
It can just beat away.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
And I beat out one hundred and twenty five grams
of soft and butter with half a cup of sugar.
Any sugar I reckon is fine.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
I just use whatever I've got.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
I want that to be light and fluffy at this
time of the year, cool morning.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Still.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
I'll put in a tea.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Spoon or two of boiling hot water with that, too,
jack and it just helps to soften that butter a
little bit. I don't own a MICROWAVC, so I can't
get it all really soft, so I'll do that doesn't
impact on the end result. And then you want to
add two eggs, but I beat well in between each one,
So I'll add one.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
I'll beat for about twenty seconds and then I'll add
the next one.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
It does sort of make a difference there.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
I put a drizzle of golden syrup.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
Goodness knows why I do. I just feel like it
gives it a little something. You could use maple syrup
as well, but don't use a good quality one. Just
use a cheap one in there. And then I don't
mash the banana. I just peel two bananas and I
break them off from pieces, and I put those in
the in the beta, and that's two large bananas I use.
Mine weren't particularly right, but they were ripe enough. About

(03:16):
half a cup or seventy grams of walnut pieces and
the same half a cup of sultanas in there. Give
that all a bit of a mix, and then sift
or just dump in self raising flour, two cups of
that and half a teaspoon of cinnamon, plus a quarter
of a teaspoon of baking soda to give us that
extra little lift in there. You just want to stir

(03:38):
that or just beat that very slowly. You want to
make sure there's no pockets of flour in there, but
you also want to make sure that there's that you
don't overmix.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
It, otherwise you'll get a tough loaf. I also then
use two nice big.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Dollups of plain Greek yogurt, because I love that in a.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Cake as well.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
And then if it's we're aiming for dropping consistency for
our batter jack, but if it's not quite there, and
sometimes it can be a bit stiff, eggs might be
too small, butter might have been not quite soft enough,
et cetera. Add a little splash of milk and stew
that and just so that you've got that lovely dropping consistency.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah nice, Scrape it into your.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
Tin, bake it for about forty five minutes, but you know,
insert a skewre or a knife and it should come
out nice and clean.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Loaf cakes take ages to cook.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
I've never quite figured out why, but they seem to
take longer than a regular cake, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
I should know this, but I have no idea.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
So forty five minutes, if it's still coming out with
a little bit of the batter on your skew it,
cook it for a bit longer, that'll be fine.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
And look, you can have it warm, you can have
it cold.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
I butter mine. I also take grete slices and I
mix up some sour cream with some brown sugar, and
I doll up that on top. Is a great idea, Honestly,
it's just wickedly good.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah, it sounds fantastic. And can you I know we're
not calling it a bread, but can you eat it
in banana bread type settings ie for breakfast toasted?

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Maybe?

Speaker 4 (04:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Absolutely?

Speaker 4 (05:01):
And yeah, once you know, if it hangs around for
a bit, or if you freeze it and you want
to toast it up, that's fine, just to have that.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Sort of warmth in it.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Because then, of course you get that viewful aroma as well.
So yeah, absolutely, we don't want to call it a
banana bread. I think the Assies call it banana bread,
but it's it's never really yeasted, So I'm not sure
what's going on about, but there you go.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
P used, how about so many things?

Speaker 2 (05:29):
No, this absolutely sounds like a winner. Thank you so much.
We'll make sure the recipe is up and available online
as well.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks d B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio