Espresso Banana Bread

Banana Bread with built in caffeine fix. Now we're talkin'.

Espresso Banana Bread
slightly adapted from Nigella Lawson's Nigellissima

150ml grapeseed oil (or any flavourless vegetable oil such as canola or sunflower oil)
3 medium bananas, peeled and mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
150g light brown sugar
175g cake flour (If you don't have cake flour, use plain flour)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 teaspoons instant espresso powder

Pop a baking sheet into the middle rack of the oven and preheat it to 170 C.

Line a 21cm x 11cm loaf pan with baking paper. I got some loaf pan liners from a local store. They just slip straight into the pan, no cutting or shaping required... I'm in love with them.

Put the mashed bananas and vanilla extract into a bowl and stir them together. Add the salt and oil and beat them until combined.

Beat the eggs in one at a time and then add the sugar and beat it in also. (There's a lot of beating going on.)

In a separate bowl, combined the flour, baking soda and espresso powder. Add these to the banana mixture and stir to just combine. The batter will be quite runny.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and pop it onto the heating baking sheet in the oven. Bake for 50 - 60 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. You can eat it as soon as it cools, but is even better the next day. You can serve it just on it's own or spread generously with Nutella or mascarpone and dusted with cinnamon.