I write to you from my sofa, under a crocheted blanket, having just eaten some freshly baked banana bread. Since getting back from our trip to the UK last week I’m making more of an effort to be appreciative; of the quiet times, of our home, and just generally doing the things I want to do whilst being a little bit more positive and aware. Whilst bank holidays here are a little different from the UK, Munich has managed to align itself with my home country on this particular one – it’s pouring with rain outside. In spite of the weather there’s still a lot to be thankful for, and this chilled out bank holiday situation is one of them.

There have been very few times in my life where I have known, with absolute certainty, what I want to be doing, but today was one of those times, and I wanted to bake banana bread. Having flicked through some foodie blogs this week on the hunt for an overnight oats recipe that I am capable of (the hunt continues) I stumbled across a recipe for banana bread and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

So when Felix asked me this morning if I’d help with fixing the fence I said I would, once I’d baked some banana bread.

Having lost said stumbled-upon-recipe I turned to google, which yielded multiple results, but most were with ‘cup’ measurements, and the thing is, these measurements are somewhat of a mystery to me. I know I know, I just need to buy a set and it would all make sense but I work with what I’ve got – and what I’ve got are weighing scales – so I looked at a few recipes, and essentially combined them as I saw fit, keeping it nice and simple.

By the time it came out of the oven it had started raining, so the fence repairs remain on the to do list, but we had a consolation prize as a little bank holiday miracle happened and my banana bread turned out the way I wanted it to. I’m not claiming this as my own but I’m saving the method here for future reference and for anyone else who is after a seriously easy (cup-free) recipe.

Most of the recipes used walnuts but almonds were all we had so I freestyled and it paid off…

Easy peasy banana bread

• 75g butter
• 100g demerara sugar
• 1 egg
• 200g plain flour
• 3 bananas / mashed
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 30g chopped almonds / dry ingredient of your choice (optional)
• Milk – add as needed (I used 8 cap-fulls)

1. Heat oven to 180c and line loaf tin with baking paper
2. Cream together butter and sugar
3. Mix in egg
4. Mix in mashed bananas
5. Mix together flour, bicarbonate of soda & baking powder – gradually sieve into mixture (a few spoonfuls at a time)
6. Add in almonds / dry ingredient of your choice
7. Add in milk as necessary to loosen up mixture
8. Pour into loaf tin
9. Cook at 180c for 45-60 minutes – should be golden brown on outside and knife should come out clean when inserted into the middle.