banana bread

What to do when mid-afternoon in midsummer looks as ominous as this?

Storm clouds, thunder and lightning, hail stones as big as golf balls... Summer has forgotten its lines...

What to do in the face of such seasonal craziness? Bake banana bread of course. Well..., of course.

That's how it seemed to me anyway (especially as we had a fruit bowl of formerly yellow bananas lazily ripening into an inedible slush). It is good for this winter-summer though; it's got the sweetness and soft cakiness of wintery comfort food but the sunshiny taste of summer.

Banana and Walnut Loaf
adapted from Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course

* Preheat the oven to gas mark 4, 350F (180C)
* Grease a loaf tin, 9x19cm, or equivalent
* Beat 3oz soft butter with 4oz caster sugar
* Add in a beaten egg, slowly, and beat well
* Stir in 8oz plain flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder and a teaspoon of ground nutmeg
* Mash 3 bananas and add to the mixture, along with the grated rind of an orange, the grated rind of a lemon and 2oz roughly chopped walnuts
* Transfer to the loaf tin and pop in the oven for 50-55 minutes, until the loaf is golden, well-risen and springs back.
* Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then loosen round the edges and turn out to finish cooling on a wire tray.