Fragrant Banana Bread - First Try

Source: Adapted from recipe from Cooking Crave

I decided to try out Cooking Crave recipe instead of another found on The Little Teochew ("TLT"). TLT commented her banana bread turned out heavier at the bottom. I suspect that was probably because she used normal plain flour. I decided to use Cake Flour, which has less gluten than plain flour. It's the gluten that makes the banana bread bottom-heavy, I thought. Am I right? Well, we would see from this experiment.


Ingredient:
4 mashed in food processor, plus one cut into pieces with knife and added to babana mash (3 or 4 ripe bananas - smashed)
same - 50 g melted butter
100 gm - 120 g sugar - (I use 100 g)
same - 1 egg - slightly beaten
3/4 tbl - 1 tsp vanilla essense
1 ts- 1/2 or 1 tsp cinnamon ground (optional)
same - 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
baking powder - 1 ts (my addition)
pinch of salt (omitted coz butter was salted)
250 gm - 200 g plain flour

Method:
Preheat oven to 175 deg C - instd of 160c (325f).
Sieve flour, cinnamon ground and soda together and set aside.
Mix melted butter with mashed bananas in mixing bowl with a wooden spoon.
Add in sugar, salt, egg and vanilla. Stir the mixture till well combined.
Lastly, add the sieve flour. Mix well. Pour mixture into a greased 8"x4" loaf pan.
Bake for 50mins or until it's cooked. Cool on wire rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Comment:
As you can see, the banana bread didn't turn out too appealing. It was over-baked! *grin*

I erred because I was intrigued and enticed to bake longer when a sweet fragrance wafted into the dining area about 30 min into the baking. The crust didn't look browned enough. As this was my first try at baking bread, I decided to see what happened if I bake for 40 min, then for another 10. Total was 50 min! Well, the crust appeared well done enough, with breaks here and there. But it turned out too hard! I had committed the cardinal sin of over-baking!

Moreover, the fragrance practically was non-existent when I ate a slice. So in sum, there's nothing to write about, taste-wise it was nothing extraordinary. I have to deem this experiment a failure. *sigh*

..hmmm, store-bought bananas are commercially grown and harvested long before the bananas mature and ripen on the tree. Would bananas left to sun-ripen on-the-stem make a difference?