Brazil & banana bread

Often overlooked, these nuts deserve their turn in the spotlight – bake into a squidgy, soft loaf cake with fruit and coconut

100ml sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing
140g caster sugar
140g plain flour
140g Brazil nuts, roughly chopped
50g desiccated coconut
1 tbsp butter, diced, plus extra to serve
2 large, very ripe bananas - with black skins is ideal (about 175g peeled weight)
1 large egg, plus 1 large egg white
5 tbsp milk
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease a 900g loaf tin, then line the base and ends with a long strip of baking parchment. Stir together 2 tbsp each of the sugar, flour, nuts and coconut. Add the butter and rub together to sticky crumbs. Set aside.
Mash the bananas well, then stir in the sunflower oil, egg and milk. In a separate large bowl, mix half of the remaining sugar, followed by the remaining flour, nuts and coconut, then the baking powder and cinnamon.
Whisk the egg white to stiff peaks, add the final bit of sugar and whisk again until stiff and shiny. Stir the banana mixture into the dry ingredients, then lightly fold in the egg white mixture. Gently scrape into the tin and scatter over the crumb mixture.
Bake for 40 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean, covering with foil if the bread starts to go too brown. Cool in the tin, then remove and thickly slice, eating with butter, if you like.