Banana Loaf with Blueberries - An Heirloom Recipe Series

A Simple Tasty Favourite to Ease Me Back to Normality - Extra Food Chat with Kath

Welcome to another edition of Extra Food Chat with Kath!

Firstly, I’ll start by apologising for my longer than usual gap between Extra Food Chat newsletters. I have been sick the last three weeks or so weeks, and all baking, working and doing things generally just stopped. I just managed to get my weekly free newsletters out, mostly thanks to the fact I’d already started writing them, but anything/everything else just didn’t happen.

Being chronically ill (I live with chronic migraine) means I am quite used to working and doing things when I can, and trying not to have a strict idea of when I want to do things as it’s rarely in my control. However, adding an additional illness on top of that really stopped me in my tracks.

After 5 years of dodging COVID-19 I finally caught it, and already living with asthma has added an additional layer to the recovery process. I am doing better now, and am almost back to my ‘normal’ now (and yes, it has unfortunately added to my issues with taste and smell!😔).

I mentioned last month I had hoped to bring you the recipe for a chicken dish my Great Aunt often made, and we have continued to make ever since I was little. When I started to get sick (and didn’t yet know what it was), I started preparing the recipe, poaching and shredding the chicken one day, with the intention of making the sauce, putting the whole thing together and talking some photos the next.

It was that next day that I tested positive for COVID, so I barely put a foot back into the kitchen for a week and the chicken I had prepared and the hopes of completing the dish and having it ready to share with you here were put in the bin.

I am hoping I will be able to share that recipe with you soon (🤞🏻), but until then I thought I’d share another recipe, a simple comforting Banana Loaf with Blueberries, something I wish I’d had in the freezer for quick snacks when I was sick! This is a recipe I found in my Grandma’s handwritten recipe collection a few years ago, I made some small changes and I have been making it ever since - I don’t think I’ve made any other banana bread/loaf recipes since I found this one!

I have often made banana breads/loaves, I like having them sliced up in the freezer ready to a snacking emergency or a slightly decadent breakfast (toasted with Pepe Saya maple butter!). Since Grandma’s recipe used blueberries that what I always add as well. Raspberries would also be nice, I just find them a bit messier when it comes to toasting a slice in the sandwich toaster later. Choc chips of any kind would also be an excellent substitute.

I have specified panela sugar in the recipe, because that is what I like the best. The golden caramel notes of this unrefined sugar give the loaf a lovely colour and flavour, and the fact that its unrefined makes me feel like I can eat this for breakfast sometimes and not think I just ate cake at the beginning of the day! You can also easily substitute with the same quantity of brown sugar, I’ve also used low GI sugar as well (though the loaf will have a lighter colour).

As I’ve already mentioned this loaf freezes really well, just cut it into slices once the loaf has cooled, wrap, then freeze.

Baking Beyond the Paywall: The edited and tested recipe for this Banana Loaf with Blueberries is below for paid subscribers.

Paid subscribers to Extra Food Chat with Kath support my work and keep the ovens on at Kulinary HQ. Paid subscribers receive posts like these in full every time, and can also comment on this post, and ask me questions about the recipe (or anything else really!). The entire recipe archive is also available to paid subscribers - check out what’s been shared so far with paid subscribers here.