Nigel Slater’s Chocolate Banana Bread

250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
125g unsalted butter, softened
235g light muscovado sugar, rapadura or demerara work if you can’t find muscovado
400g ripe bananas (peeled weight)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
100g dark chocolate (I use Lindt 70 percent dark chocolate)

Put the bananas in a bowl and mash them with a fork. Lumpy is ok, you don’t want a puree.

Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius (fan-forced).

Line a rectangular loaf tin with baking paper.

Sift the flour and baking powder together.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Stir the vanilla into the bananas.

Beat the eggs with a fork, then beat them into the creamed butter and sugar mixture.

Add a spoonful of flour at any sign the creamed butter, sugar, egg mixture looks like it is curdling.

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and fold it and the bananas into the butter and sugar mixture.

Gently fold in the flour and baking powder.

Scrape the mixture into the lined loaf tin and bake for about 50 minutes.

The cake is ready when a skewer comes out clean.

At around the 30 minute mark, check that the loaf isn’t getting too brown, if so, cover with foil for the remainder of the cooking time. Complete the last 2 minutes of cooking without the foil.

Leave the loaf to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a cake cooling rack.