So this week was bread week on the Great British Bake Off. I fondly remembered Jamie’s Nutella and Banana Bread that I used to make as a teenager and thought this was the perfect reason to resurrect the recipe. So old is the recipe that it doesn’t appear online so I will post it here instead.

Jamie’s Nutella and Banana Bread

30g fresh yeast or 3 x 7g sachets dry yeast

30g honey (or sugar)

625ml tepid water

1kg strong bread flour

30g salt

Some extra flour for dusting

5 Bananas cut very thinly

1 x 400g jar of Nutella

Stage 1

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Dissolve the yeast and honey (or sugar) in half the tepid water.

Stage 2

On a clean surface or in large bowl, make a pile of the flour and the salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in all the dissolved yeast mixture. With 4 fingers of one hand, make circular movements from the centre moving outwards, slowly bringing in more and more of the flour until all the yeast mixture is soaked up. Then pour the other half of the tepid water into the centre and gradually incorporate all the flour to make moist dough. (Certain flours may need a little more water, so don’t be afraid to adjust the quantities.)

Stage 3

Kneading! This is the best bit, just rolling, pushing and folding the dough over and over for 5 minutes. This develops the gluten and the structure of the dough. If any of the dough sticks to your hands, just rub them together with a little extra flour.

Stage 4

Flour both your hands well, and lightly flour the top of the dough. Make it into a roundish shape and place on a baking tray. Deeply score the dough with a knife – allowing it to relax and prove with ease. Leave it to prove until it’s doubled in size. Ideally you want a warm, moist, draught-free place for the quickest prove, for example near a warm cooker, in the airing cupboard or just in a warmish room, and you can even cover it with clingfilm if you want to speed things up. This proving process improves the flavour and texture of the dough and should take around 40 minutes, depending on the conditions.

Stage 5

When the dough has doubled in size you need to knock the air out it by bashing it around for a minute. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a large flat shape (about 1/2 inch thick, 15 inches long and 12 – 15 inches wide). Heat the jar of nutella (without the lid on) in the microwave for 25 seconds to soften the nutella. Use a palette knife to spread the nutella evenly all over the bread. Arrange the sliced bananas all over the bread.

Stage 6

Roll up the dough length ways, in the same way that you would roll a swiss roll. Then curl the rolled dough around to make a snail shape. Transfer the bread roll to a baking tray. Be careful when doing this as the dough will need to be coaxed slowly away from the surface underneath.

Stage 7

Prove the dough for 15 minutes.

Stage 8

Bake in the oven for approximately 25 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Top Tips

1) This bread is really yummy so do make it and have it for Sunday breakfast as the smell of fresh bread will make you popular with everyone else in the house.

2) Paul Hollywood would have been cross if he had been judging this bread on the Great British Bake Off as in the centre some of the dough was still raw. This is unfortunately a side effect of the roll. Next time I might just try rolling into a large sausage and not then rolling into a snail shape because although this would not be as attractive, it would hopefully give a more even bake throughout the bread.

3) The bread dough calls for 30g of salt. This is actually quite a lot of salt and you can distinctly taste it in the dough. I liked the contrast of the salty dough against the sweet filling but if you are not such a salt fan then you might wish to reduce the amount of salt in the dough.