The only little ‘issue’ I had while making this was that, after some research on different kinds of banana breads, I was expecting it to take only about 35 minutes to bake. Wrong. It was clearly still wobbling away in the tin after only 35 minutes, so I put it back in the oven and checked it again every 10 minutes or so after that and, do you know, it ended up taking a whole HOUR to bake. Possibly a little over that. If I’d really thought about it, though, with my gradually-improving knowledge of all things baking (!), the batter for this loaf is fairly ‘wet’, with not many ‘dry’ ingredients in it at all, so it’s bound to take a while longer to bake than loaves with a higher ratio of dry to wet.
What this also means is that you end up with a beautifully moist loaf, but not at all soggy or heavy. The addition of the yoghurt and the almond meal helps to keep things from getting too dry, especially if you do choose to use gluten free flour as I did. I didn’t test it with ordinary flour, but I’m pretty confident that the loaf will work just as well if you choose to use that instead. I understand that especially when there are smaller amounts of flour in a recipe, as in this one, it’s usually fine to do a straight substitution like that.
I would be very tempted to say this is the best banana loaf you could ever eat, but I think that might be a bit of a dangerous thing to do! Nearly everyone, after all, loves banana bread and most likely has their favourite one nailed already. But I think there’s always room for one more kid on the block in the banana bread department, don’t you? Especially when it’s full of slightly salty pistachios and thickly slathered with a creamy, tangy, buttery, and accidentally crispy frosting.
Accidentally crispy? OK, I’ll explain. At the wonderful Greek supermarket I happened to go to for my ingredients, they didn’t have any plain white chocolate bars, only white chocolate with crispy rice bits in it. I considered omitting the white chocolate from my frosting, but decided in the end to go ahead and put it in, crispy bits and all! Turns out I was pleasantly surprised by how the subtle crunch added to the overall loveliness of this banana loaf. Who would have thought it? So next time I make this, it’ll be the white choc with the crispy bits in that I throw into my basket again, but this time very gladly!
And there definitely will be a next time. The recipe I have below for the white chocolate cream cheese frosting actually makes enough to frost two loaves. You could halve the ingredients if you like of course, but I rather like the idea that I have my frosting all ready and waiting in the freezer for my next banana and pistachio loaf. Or perhaps to go on top of a different kind of cake. Or little cakes. Or muffins. Or brownies. Or blondies.
Or maybe just on a big spoon straight into my mouth! Yes, I think this frosting could be very versatile indeed!
So now over to you … are you more of a cook or a baker? Has it always been this way? And are you ever tempted to eat cake frosting right off the spoon?
文章定位：
