Banana matcha bread

We did our usual grocery shopping and, as usual, I made it a point out to stop by the 50% off rack in the fruits and veggies. This time around there was a pile of bananas. I bought a whole bundle with the intent of making banana bread. No matcha in mind at this point.

Of course, the fact that I'd never baked this didn't faze me. At all. That's what recipe books are for!

Banana matcha loaf

I got the banana bread recipe from here. I doubled the recipe so I could make these two loaves.

But I wanted to make it a little different so I decided to put in some matcha (or green tea) powder in it.  I wanted to make it look like this photo on the right. I probably should've followed this recipe instead though. Did a few stupid things (see down there) but eventually got things going!

Here's what actually happened, combining two recipes:

What I used (this is 1 recipe, I doubled this for the 2 loaves):

4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar (I reduced this from 1 cup)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla (didn't have any, so I didn't put any in)
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons matcha (green tea powder) - I winged it.

What I did:
Note: I used a stand mixer for this although the recipe says you can do all this by hand.

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). 
2. Mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. 
3. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. 
4. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. 
5. Add the flour last, mix. 
6. Pour half mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. 
7. In the remaining batter, mix in the matcha powder.
8. Pour in the other half of the batter into the pan and give the entire mixture a swirl in the pan (I was hoping for a marbled effect.
9. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve. 

Taste test results: Absolute yum! It was moist and the banana and matcha combo is lovely. The matcha countered the bananas' sweetness with its earthy tone, making it quite a unique flavour!

Looks-wise: Ok, so I failed miserably at making it look like that photo up there. The whole insides looked brown throughout, just as brown as that crust.

Bloopers: I initially thought I could marble that matcha by hand so I actually put in matcha powder directly into the pan. Don't do it. The powder can be extremely lumpy. I ended up mixing the matcha in the mixer again.

Look at those globs of matcha on the top! While I don't mind it, you may find the matcha like this too strong.  

Marbling gone wrong.