This is a recipe of my mother. I remember the first time my mother ventured into using bananas in her baking. It was in mid 80s Jakarta, where every embassy had been invited to put up a stall, at a banana food festival and all food had to be made of banana. Besides organizing the Sri Lankan stall, my mother experimented and baked her first banana cake then. Ever since, she has tried using banana in different baked products.

This banana bun is great as both a tea-time snack and as breakfast food.

Banana bun

Time taken: 2 hours

Makes 9 buns

Ingredients:

• Multi-purpose flour – 1 ½ cups
• Yeast – 1 tbsp
• Salt – 1 tbsp
• Vegetable margarine – ¼ cup
• Banana – ½ cup, mashed
• Raisins – 1 tbsp
• Cinnamon – ½ tsp, crushed
• Vanilla essence – ½ tsp

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, add a pinch of salt to the flour.
2. Prepare a yeast solution by adding ¼ cup of lukewarm water to a tbsp yeast and a tbsp salt. Let the solution rest for 2 – 3 mins before adding to the flour in the mixing bowl.
3. Add the vegetable margarine and mashed banana to the mixing bowl as well and make the dough for the bun.
4. Sprinkle the raisins, crushed cinnamon and vanilla essence and knead the dough. Divide the dough into 9 balls and let the dough rest for around 30 – 40 mins.
5. Transfer to baking tray and bake at 170⁰C/338⁰F for 25 mins first on the lower shelf and for another 15 mins on the top shelf so that it is sufficiently browned.
6. Serve warm, either plain or with a dab of margarine or sprinkled with sugar.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.