By Pholosho Matondolo

Growing up, I loved being in the kitchen, cooking for my family and trying out new recipes with my mother.  Baking was fun to me and once a month, I would set out to make banana bread for my family.  With time, my mother started sharing some with her colleagues and our neighbors… It was an instant hit!  My banana bread was in high demand and I went from baking it just for my family to enjoy to baking it for others.

As I gained more confidence in the kitchen, I started becoming more creative: adding different flavors and ingredients to my banana bread.  It brought so much joy to family and friends that I decided to share with you my ‘Banana and Cinnamon Bread’.  It is super easy to make and the ingredients are inexpensive.

Banana and Cinnamon bread

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt ( I used pink salt)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 eggs, beaten

1/3 buttermilk

½ cup vegetable oil ( I prefer olive oil)

1 cup mashed bananas ( very ripe ones)

½ cup brown sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 165 C. Spray 9×5 inch loaf pan with non-stick spray coating.

Blend together the eggs, buttermilk, oil and bananas

Sift together the sugar, flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add to the banana mixture and mix well.

Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.

The good thing about banana bread is that you can really experiment and add other ingredients like chocolate chips or nuts.  Enjoy!