Banana, date and honey loaf

I've been pretty good with bananas recently, forcing myself to eat them when they've gone a little too far for me so that I don't end up at the end of the week with tonnes of overripe bananas to deal with. However, I was following links the other day (I'm sure I'm not the only one who wastes hours of time jumping from one place to another on the internet....) and ended up on the Lurpak website. They seem to have quite a good little recipe section for bakers and I spotted this banana, date and honey loaf. Serendipitously I had a large banana that had gone beyond the eating stage and so it was a matter of laziness to leave it for a couple more days to develop to the ripeness where it was ready for baking. A trip to work and back (I'm full of good intentions) also provided it with a couple of unappetising bruises - perfect for baking!

This was a really easy cake to make and actually baked at the lower end of the specified time, mine took an hour, and I normally end up leaving things in the oven for longer than specified. I made a couple of small changes - I ran out of butter at 140g, so that's what I used and I swapped 80g dates + 40g walnuts for 100g dates. I soaked the dates briefly in some boiling water to soften them slightly (actually, the truth is that I went and had a shower while they soaked, so I've no idea how long it was!) because they looked a little old and chewy. I also didn't drizzle with honey after baking, making things even stickier is fine if you're leaving them put at home, but if they're going on a journey, inherent stickiness will have to suffice!

Pretty popular at work, and an attractive loaf to look at, but nothing special really. I can't quite put my finger on why, but this recipe just didn't do it for me. It was quite mildly banana flavoured and the dates weren't prominent either.