Buttermilk Banana Bread with Oats and Chia Seeds

The sole of my shoe bailed out on me one morning. The right one fell off just as my partner was ready to drive us off to a seminar. And that was my only pair. Drat! 

Ini dia.

I tossed it into the garden and was left with one shoe without soles. It felt funny and it made me walk with a slight limp. But since I was going to be seated for most of the day, I was not worried.

After lunch, the left sole acted up. And I almost tripped. My partner noticed. In fact he laughed. "Do you have spare shoes in the car?", he asked. Nope. This madam only buys shoes when the current one has fallen apart. Tsk..tsk..tsk...

Then half way through the afternoon, as the trainer was getting into the thick of things, my sole sole (hee..hee...) fell off .

When the session was over, I simply left the departed sole under the table. As we made our way to the lift, I told my partner. "You are always like that one", was his response. 

Then I visualized the cleaner finding the sole under the table. "Uiks! Tapak kasut!". My twisted mind went further into the deep recess of the funnies.

In this age of social media, my sole appears on FB with the caption "Terjumpa tapak kasut bawah meja. Siapa punye?". It then gets 5 likes.

This is my fourth experience with runaway soles. The first time, both the soles of my Reeboks almost came off and I limped my way to the cobbler nearby. Then the next time, one sole came off while I was exercising. It was the weirdest feeling because I felt as if I stepped into a pit. And not forgetting the one that happened on one rare date night. 

So that's the most interesting thing that happened to me so far this year.

Oh, sorry. I digress. Banana bread. It's a cake of course, not bread as we know it. This one I saw on Diana's blog and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I love banana cake and this is a variation that contains rolled oats and chia seeds. The thick slice I saw on Diana's post made me very hungry and I simply had to bake one for myself.

I happened to chuck 4 ripe bananas into the freezer because I had no time to bake the week before. So that's what I used for this cake. The bananas looked hideous because the skin turned black and the bananas were super soggy. But they still smelled good and tasted....well, they still tasted like bananas. So it was all good. They were super easy to mash.

This cake is easy to put together because you don't need to cream the butter. It is just like making muffins, you simply add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix. What comes out is a dense and moist cake with wonderful banana aroma. I love this banana bread and it's best to serve thick slices for ultimate satisfaction.

Buttermilk Banana Bread with Oats and Chia Seeds
Recipe source : Adapted from The Domestic Goddess Wannabe

Ingredients :
- 200g self-raising flour, sifted
- 100g caster sugar (This amount to barely sweet. I will addo 130g in future. Please adjust according to the sweetness of your bananas or your own taste)
- 45g rolled oats
- 20 chia seeds
- 4 medium sized bananas, mashed (I used frozen pisang berangan)
- 1 large egg
- 120g buter, melted
- 200ml buttermilk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional, I added just to finish off my leftover vanilla extract hah..hah...)

Method :
1. Mash bananas in a mixing bowl.
2. Add egg, buttermilk and melted butter to the mashed bananas and mix until well combined.
3. In another mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, oats and chia seeds. Use a whisk to combine the dry ingredients.
4. Pour the banana mixture into the dry ingredients and use a spatula to fold the ingredients until just combined (do not overmix).
5. Pour batter into a lined loaf pan (9"x5") and bake at 160C for 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
6. Cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Notes for my own reference : 
I set the oven for 50 minutes. Upon checking 5 minutes before time,  I noticed that the cake was still not done. I tented the cake with aluminum foil and left it in the oven for another 10 minutes to bake using residual heat.