I highly recommend this incredibly moist yet fluffy banana bread. It is loaded with lots of bananas and the incredible aroma of gula Melaka. Try it and you will know what I mean. So good!
Preheat oven to 325 F (170 C) for conventional oven. If you use convection oven, lower the temperature by 20 F or 15 C. Place the oven rack at the lower 3rd of the oven. Lightly grease your 9 x 5 loaf pan and line it with parchment paper on all sides
Whisk all the dry ingredients and set aside. Combine bananas, gula Melaka, oil, buttermilk, eggs, rum, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl using a whisk. Sift in the dry ingredients into the wet and fold to combine. As long as you don't see any pockets of flour, you are done mixing. Don't overmix the batter
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Tap a few times on the counter top to release any bubbles
Decorate with 2 thin slices of bananas and some walnuts on top. Dampen your fingertips with some water and then pinch the sugar to form some clumps and sprinkle this on top of the banana and walnuts
Baking:
Put the pan inside the oven and bake for 60-70 minutes. It took me about 70 minutes. When you insert a skewer into the cake, it should come out clean with few crumbs as long as it's not wet
Cooling:
Let it cool down in the pan for 20 minutes and then lift it out by grabbing on the parchment paper and transfer to a wire rack to cool down completely
Serve:
Do not cut into the bread/cake while it's still warm. It's very tempting I know! But it has to cool down completely. If you can wait to serve the next day, that's even better. The flavor has a chance to develop and the cake will be ultra soft and fluffy yet moist at the same time
Storage:
It can be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for about 5 days (it didn't last that long at our house!)
Notes
If you don't have gula Melaka or coconut sugar, feel free to use dark brown sugar or light brown sugar. The aroma won't be exactly the same, but you'll still have a really nice banana bread
If you don't have buttermilk, you can make your own by adding 1/3 teaspoon of vinegar/lemon juice to 75 gr (1/3 cup) of regular milk and let it sit for 10 minutes. You will see some curds, may not be a lot, but it's ready to be used