Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread Recipe

We’re a bit of a fan of cinnamon here at Hopton House. My husband is particularly keen. Normally I can’t tempt Jess & Rob with a fresh baked sweet bread in the morning, but they both make an exception for this banana bread.

OK there’s a lot of sugar in this recipe but I’m a firm believer in everything in moderation. If you’re trying to cut down on refined sugar,  then it still tastes very nice without the cinnamon swirl sugar, and try making it with honey.

It’s a great way for using up those over ripe bananas. the riper the better.

It also tastes very good made with gluten free self raising flour. I just add an extra tablespoon of buttermilk as gluten free flour tends to absorb more liquid.

It’s incredibly easy to do easy to do as it’s one of those banana bread recipes where you just bung everything into the mixer. It  also lasts quite well so can be cooked the day...

Unless you offer guests an evening meal, breakfast is probably the only meal that guests will experience at your B&B and the promise of a well cooked Full English is one of the reasons people choose a B&B over a hotel.

Whilst business guests may well be happy with the buffet or a bowl of porridge, my experience is that the majority of my guests, here for a relaxing few days away, want a big cooked breakfast.

I love to cook and I like to offer a bit more than just  the normal full English breakfast. And I find that over 50% of my guests will choose one of the breakfast specials I offer.

Guests staying here at Hopton House and can choose from any variation of the full English, with homemade cheese and herb sausages or halloumi for the non meat eaters, blueberry or cinnamon apple buttermilk pancakes, herby mushrooms with poached eggs, eggs benedict or eggs royale or omelette with a choice of fillings.

If my guests are vegetarian, vegan or have special...

My husband's favourite breakfast is Eggs Benedict. He always orders it when it's on a hotel menu. Though, rather curiously, he asks for it deconstructed. Poached egg covered in hollandaise with the bacon or ham and the toasted English muffin on the side.

So it was a bit unfortunate that hollandaise was one of the last recipes I've mastered. I have tried several times over the years and, on at least one occasion, it has reduced me to tears.

However, when it comes to breakfast, I'm not one to give up. And, thanks to James Gray, who used to run The Ashton in Lancaster I've discovered an almost foolproof method for quickly cooking preparing hollandaise. This recipe is slightly different to the one James gave me, with thanks to Delia.

Once you've mastered Hollandaise it can be used to produce lots of different breakfast recipes.

I got another tip from Susan Poole, who used to tweet as the B&B Coach. She suggested putting the sauce into a thermos to keep it warm, so...

One question I’m asked an awful lot on the courses is “Do you have to serve a cooked breakfast?” In the UK, that would be a full English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, with even more regional variations.

And my answer is “No you don’t” but then I add a “BUT…” I have a pretty standard answer for this on the course, but I thought it would be fun to go out to the FB group for past course attendees and ask them what they offered for breakfast.

There are a number of things you need to consider when planning what sort of breakfast you will serve to guests.

• Your personal preferences and cooking abilities
• The type of guests staying at your B&B and why they’re staying
• Where you’re located and if there are places to eat nearby 
• The size of your dining room and your B&B rooms, if you’re doing room service
• Staying safe with social distancing in the current Pandemic

What sort of breakfast do you want to serve?

Blackberry pancakes with an apple, blackberry and cinnamon compote

 Pancakes and sausages are my 2 favourite breakfast ingredients and, as it's nearly autumn, there are lots of lovely ingredients in the garden to go with them.  So I headed into the orchard, where the apples are throwing themselves off the trees and the wildflower meadow, where we have lots of blackberries just now.

This recipe will feed 2 people very generously with about 5 small pancakes each. You could halve it for more  a manageable breakfast.

Pancake Ingredients

• 1 cup ( 150g ) Plain ( all purpose flour )
• 2 tablespoons ( 30g ) white sugar
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda ( baking soda )
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup ( 225 ml ) buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoon ( 25g ) melted butter
• About 30 small blackberries

Compote ingredients

• 1 large eating apple - granny smiths are good - cored, peeled and chopped into large cubes
• 10 small blackberries
• 2 tablespoons ( 25g ) melted butter
• 1/2...

I’m always overtaken with an uncontrollable urge to bake something for breakfast the morning after watching the Great British Bake Off ( GBBO). Unfortunately most of my B&B  guests have filled up on fruit, bircher muesli, toast and full Shropshire breakfast, so don’t touch the baked goods, but when a girl’s got to bake she’s got to bake.

For some reason I’ve been thinking about making blueberry scones for some time. Scones are a big thing for breakfast in America, but they tend to be shorter crispier beast than the traditional English scone.

These scones are a version of the traditional scone we get in the UK, but with the addition of blueberries and lime zest. They are not too sweet and the lime zest isn’t overpowering but somehow enhances them.

You can use fresh or frozen blueberries. I use buttermilk in most of my baking – it really does make a difference. If you don’t have buttermilk you can use milk with a...