Banana bread comes out of the oven 'soft and tender' if you add chef's 'secret' ingredient

Banana bread is one of the easiest things that you can bake at home, and luckily, it also happens to be one of the most delicious. Fluffy and moist on the inside, you really can't beat a slice of this sweet treat when you need a pick-me-up, especially when served warm with butter.

But achieving that perfect texture can sometimes be tricky, even if you've been baking banana bread for years. According to one chef and cookbook author, there's one kitchen ingredient that often goes to waste that can significantly improve your banana bread. Eleanor Wilkinson, author of One Pot One Portion, says you can add a little ricotta to your batter for the perfect bake.

The content creator, who focuses on small portions with no wasted ingredients, says that leftover ricotta makes an excellent addition to your banana bread.

Taking to Instagram, she shared her delicious-looking recipe and posted in the caption: "Cooking for one means sometimes having leftover ingredients and this is my new FAVOURITE thing to make with leftover ricotta. I despise a dry banana bread but this couldn't be further from that. Exceptionally moist, flavourful and, as always, completely delicious."

She even said it was the 'softest and most tender' banana bread she'd ever made, and will now never make it without adding some ricotta.

Here's how you can make this recipe at home.

Ingredients

• Three small bananas
• 100g ricotta, plus extra to serve
• One egg
• 80ml neutral oil
• Tsp vanilla extract
• 150g self-raising flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Maple syrup to serve (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan and line a 1lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper. If you don't have one this small, you can make around six muffins instead.

In a mixing bowl, mash the bananas with a fork to a paste. Add the ricotta, egg, oil and vanilla and mix with a fork or spoon until everything is combined.

Then add the flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarb and fold through with a spoon until just combined.

Pour the batter into the loaf tin and bake in the oven until a knife comes out clean. This could take between 20-40 minutes depending on how big your tin is, or if you are making muffins.

Leave the banana bread to cool before cutting yourself a slice and serving with some extra ricotta and a drizzle of maple syrup on top.