(6p) Banana Bread

I snapped up 7 bananas for 6p at the supermarket the other day. Slightly past their best, they were just perfect for making banana loaf. I made a couple of loaves by doubling the recipe below. The first was plain and the second had 100g of dark chocolate chips thrown in for good measure and stashed the latter in the freezer for a rainy day.

Loaf cakes like these freeze really well - I just left mine in the greaseproof paper and popped it into a freezer bag with the date on. Bananas are often reduced in the supermarket as they go from ripe to overripe so quickly, so keep your eyes peeled if you want to get in on the banana bread action!

This is adapted from a Mary Berry recipe and is the quickest and easiest recipe for banana bread that I know. It makes a loaf that's pretty even in texture, but if you wanted chunks of banana, I'd suggest stirring with a wooden spoon rather than using an electric mixer.

Ingredients
100g softened butter
175g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk

1. Pre-heat the oven 180℃/360℉/Gas Mark 4 and line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper
2. Mix all of the ingredients with an electric mixer
3. Spoon into the loaf tin and flatten the top with a spoon
4. Bake in the centre of the pre-heated oven for around 1 hour, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean
5. Leave to cool in the cake tin for a short while and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool fully

Enjoy warm with cream or ice cream or with a cup of afternoon tea.

Gluten Free vs Regular Sponge Cake

This weekend we had lots of Birthday celebrations to enjoy, which gave me a chance to do a side-by-side comparison of a gluten-free sponge and a regular sponge.

For the regular sponge I used this recipe (but with 2 layers) and for the gluten-free cake, I opted for this recipe from Dove Farm. The two aren't really a direct comparison as the 'regular' cake uses 4 eggs and the gluten-free just 2, but I'm not yet confident enough to play around with quantities.

Gluten Free

Unsurprisingly then, the gluten-free didn't rise as much as the regular sponge and the top was fairly prone to cracking, but both were quite light and tasted pretty similar (particularly after the addition of a generous helping of jam and whipped cream!)

'Regular'

I'm pleased to say both cakes were enjoyed by their recipients and I will be looking up some more gluten-free recipes to make with the remaining flour I now have waiting in the cupboard!

Pina Colada Curd Cake

Curd is one of those fridge lurkers; you buy it for a recipe and then it sits there, taking up precious space (or worse, being thrown out)... but no more; this cake is a great way to use up curd leftovers.

Today's recipe uses a pretty cool curd - pina colada curd! I got given a jar of Cherry Tree curd as a Christmas present and it's delicious, but you could use any curd - lemon, passionfruit or mango would work well here.

Pina Colada Cake

Sponge Recipe
175g butter
175g caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
3 eggs, gently whisked
1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190℃/375℉/Gas Mark 5 and grease two 20cm round cake tins
2. Soften the butter, then combine with the sugar and vanilla essence using an electric whisk, until pale and fluffy
3. Gradually add the eggs, whisking well between each addition
4. Sift in half of the flour and fold into the mixture using a metal spoon
5. Fold in the remaining flour
6. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and bake in the centre of the pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes until golden and well-risen

Leave the cakes on a wire rack to cool. Once cooled, spread a layer of pina colada curd across one of the cakes and sandwich the other on top.

Pina Colada Curd Icing
125g butter
250g sifted icing sugar
4 tbsp curd

1. Soften the butter, then whisk together with the icing sugar and curd until thick and creamy
2. Spread generously over the top of the cake.

PS Another of my favourite curd recipes is this no bake lemon cheesecake

PPS Did you know that the pina colada is the official beverage of Puerto Rico?

Back to School Blues Cure - Cornflake Cakes

I spent last week in sunny Cornwall and went back to work on Monday, which felt just like the first day back at school, when you accept that summer is over and feel the long year stretching out ahead of you. There's also a chill in the air in the mornings, dew on the grass and my calendar has flipped over to September.

I therefore decided I needed comfort food and made one of the best school-age snacks; cornflake cakes!

I can't call this a recipe, as all you do is melt some chocolate over a simmering pan of water and then stir in your cornflakes (mine had gone soft, which was the perfect excuse to make cornflake cakes!), but I can tell you it tastes delicious and thoroughly recommend you get making right away...

PS I love my polka dot cake cases, but how amazing are these flower pot cake cases from Lakeland?

September Seasonal Recipe: Apple and Blackberry Crumble

The blackberries are ripening beautifully here in The Cotswolds (and especially in my 'jungle garden'), which is the perfect excuse to make an apple and blackberry crumble.

Ingredients

2 cooking apples

400g blackberries

50g caster sugar

Topping:

150g plain flour

75g caster sugar

75g butter

1 tsp cinnamon

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180℃/350℉/Gas Mark 4
2. Peel, core and slice the apples and then wash and drain the blackberries
3. Pour the fruit into an ovenproof baking dish and sprinkle the caster sugar over the top
4. Sift in the flour and sugar into a clean bowl
5. Add the butter to the bowl and rub until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs
6. Bake in the centre of the pre-heated oven for 40 minutes or until lightly golden

Apple and blackberry crumble is a classic, but if you want to branch out further into the blackberry realm then Pinterest is full of inspiration as always. How about coconut, blackberry and lime ice cream here or some blackberry lemonade here or if you're feeling really out there, blackberry glazed salmon here.

Lemon No-bake Cheesecake

A jar of lemon curd goes a long way and is a great thrifty way to add zing to a cheesecake. This recipe also doesn't require much butter, which tends to be what makes baking expensive. It's also super quick and easy and the results taste delicious. In my opinion, this makes it the perfect summer desert.

Lemon Curd Cheesecake Recipe

For the base:
200g digestive biscuits
70g butter
30g lemon curd

For the topping:
250g marscapone cheese
150g lemon curd
1 tbsp Lemon juice

1. Place the biscuits in a sandwich bag and seal to close. Bash with a rolling pin until crushed into fine crumbs
2. Melt the butter in a non-stick saucepan over low heat, then add the biscuits and lemon curd and stir until well combined
3. Line a round cake tin with greaseproof paper and pour the biscuit mix into the base, press down firmly with a potato masher and pop in the fridge
4. In a clean bowl, beat the marscapone, lemon curd and lemon juice until smooth
5. Remove the cake tin from the fridge and spoon the topping on, smoothing with the back of a spoon
6. Return to the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours

This is a super thrifty version, but if you wanted to make an impressive dinner party desert, you could double up the topping to make it taller!

August Seasonal Recipe: Blackcurrant Cupcakes

It's blackcurrant season, so go forth and pick fruit! Then bring it home and make these delicious cupcakes...

Blackcurrant Cupcakes (12 servings)

Ingredients:
110g plain flour
110g caster sugar
65g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
125g blackcurrants

For the icing:
100g butter
200g icing sugar
Handful of blackcurrants

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200℃/400℉/gas mark 6 and line a muffin tin with 12 paper cases
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy
3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition
5. Sift in the flour and baking powder and stir to combine
6. Spoon into the cases and bake for 20 minutes until golden
7. To make the icing, beat the butter and icing sugar with an electric whisk, then add the blackcurrants by pressing through a sieve using a metal spoon
8. Spread the icing over the cupcakes when cool and decorate with a few blackcurrants to finish

Simply pop in a tin and take to work to be everybody's favourite colleague!

PS If you still have blackcurrants left over, check out these ideas

Rocky Road Squares- Store Cupboard Special

This month I'm a bit lacking in funds* so I've been closely focused on making everything I do as thrifty as possible, including baking.

I'm also on a drive to sort, tidy and clear out, so this recipe seemed like a natural choice. I've made rocky road before, but this month was all about using up some of the things floating around in my 'cupboard' (as I don't have a kitchen in the renovation house, I don't actually have any cupboards, so everything lives in a bookcase, but let's not get too technical!)

This included: toffee popcorn from movie night a couple of days before (now tasting a little soft), marshmallows and some digestive biscuits which weren't as crunchy as they once had been. The beauty of rocky road is that when you bung all of this together with lots of other calorific stuff, the result is amazing and you can't taste any slight softness etc, making it the ideal way to use these things up without them going to waste.

Recipe
100g chocolate (milk or dark) to drizzle over the top
200g biscuits
100g butter
Raisins
Store cupboard lurkers- toffee popcorn, marshmallows etc

1. Put the biscuits in a bag, seal and then bash into crumbs using a rolling pin

2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat and stir in the biscuits. Add the raisins, marshmallows etc and stir until thoroughly mixed

3. Pour into a tin lined with grease proof paper and press down with a potato masher

4. Leave in the fridge for an hour or so and then remove. Melt the chocolate over a simmering pan and pour over the base, return to the fridge to set for a further hour

Yum!

* PS A little clue as to why I've got got no money this month...

July Seasonal Recipe: Stewed Rhubarb and Meringue

The best deals are usually on seasonal food as it's in abundance and as a result, I've picked up some bargains on rhubarb over the past couple of weeks.

Forced rhubarb is in season early in the year and is perfect for mini rhubarb crumbles but the season for the field grown variety is around April to September, so is perfect for more summery deserts like this one.

This week, I've kept it simple, by just stewing the rhubarb and serving with shop-bought meringues, ideal if you have guests and you're in a hurry. For a thrifty, out of season version, used tinned rhubarb.

Rhubarb Meringues
Serves 4

Ingredients
Rhubarb (approx 400g)
50g water
50g orange juice
Sugar, to sweeten to taste (2-4 teaspoons usually does the trick!)
4 x meringue nests

1. Chop the rhubarb into bite-sized pieces and place in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the liquid water and orange juice and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.

2. Bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer gently for 5-10 minutes, or until the rhubarb is tender. Taste to ensure the rhubarb is sufficiently sweet, then serve over the meringue with cream, yoghurt or ice cream.

For more ideas on how to use your seasonal rhubarb, see here for Delia's suggestions (doesn't the rhubarb ice cream look amazing?) or here for Delicious Magazine's ideas (the cheesecake is next on my agenda when I have a new kitchen!)

Happy seasonal cooking!

Bank Holiday Bake Along: Chocolate Layer Cake

I'm making the most of this Bank Holiday Monday and using this rare opportunity to sneak into someone else's kitchen and make a cake. In the interest of making the most of the sunshine, I haven't been experimenting with a recipe, but instead baking along to this BBC Good Food recipe. I made a (slightly) less indulgent one with two layers and half of the quantity of icing, but the full quantities are below:

Ingredients
For the cake:
175g self-raising flour
3 tbsp 70% cocoa powder (my borrowed kitchen didn't have any cocoa powder, so the cake was a little lighter in colour and less rich, but still delicious)
1 tsp espresso powder
175g softened butter
175g golden caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1-2 tbsp milk 100g, 70% coca dark chocolate, melted

For the icing:
500g dark chocolate
500ml double cream

1. To make the icing break the chocolate into a bowl and heat the cream in a non-stick saucepan until simmering. Pour the cream over the chocolate and stir until smooth. Set aside to cool whilst you prepare the cake.

2. Preheat the oven to 180℃/160℃ fan/Gas Mark 4. Then melt the chocolate over a pan of simmering water and set aside to cool.

3. Measure out the dry ingredients, then add the egg and melted butter. Blitz with an electric whisk.

4. Add the metled chocolate to the mix and fold in.

5. Divide the mixture evenly between 2 greased cake tins and bake in the centre of the oven for 20-25 minutes. Remove and allow to cool before icing and giving to a glamorous assistant to model.

6. Enjoy!

Hope your Bank Holiday Monday is sunny and involves a tasty cake!

New Neighbour Cookies

When we spent our first weekend at the new house, we wanted to meet our new neighbours. I am very excited about having neighbours, having lived in a little lodge that's a bit out on its own. So I wrote them a note suggesting they should pop in and baked a batch of oat and raisin cookies:

I was a bit disheartened when nobody came at first, but later that evening, nearly everybody was out in their gardens enjoying their decks (see my garden pinspiration for more whimsical dreaming about our plans) and we got to meet them all. They were all lovely and it's made me even more excited and even less inclined to want to do this as a speedy project to sell on, much to Dave's amusement.

On the Sunday, next-door-but-one, who had been away the previous day. knocked on the door and look what they had made for us:

And they were super lovely, just like their cakes!

June's Seasonal Recipe: Courgette and Raisin Muffins

This month's seasonal recipe comes from Annabel Karmel, who says it's a 'delicious way to get your child to eat more vegetables' or in my case, to pretend muffins are super healthy. Either way, they're delicious for sure!


I'm going to just leave you with a photo and a link to the recipe as I think the instructions are very clear and for me, the quantities worked perfectly: Annabel Karmel's Courgette and Raisin Muffins

Very British Scones

Here is a recipe for some very British scones, inspired by my visit to the beautiful St Ives last week. The recipe is largely based on a Delia recipe but using a thrifty buttermilk substitute. Delia reckons this makes 10, but having used this recipe a couple of times I've either made 6 large ones or (in this case) 12 smaller ones.

Ingredients

225g self-raising flour

75g butter at room temperature

40g golden caster sugar

1 large egg

2 tbsp buttermilk (or 2tbsp milk and 1/2 tbsp lemon juice)

Handful of raisins (optional and not Delia-approved!)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 220℃/425℉/Gas Mark 7. Rub the flour into the butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.

2. Make up your buttermilk substitute in a cup and then beat the egg into the buttermilk using a fork. Pour the mix and the raisins into the bowl with the breadcrumb mix and mix with a wooden spoon until the dough begins to come together.

3. Use your hands to bring together into a ball. Roll out on a floured surface to around 2.5cm thick. Cut out scones using a 5cm round cookie cutter and place on a greased and flour-dusted baking tray.

4. Lightly brush with buttermilk and then bake in the centre of the oven for 10-12 minutes until well-risen and golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

5. Serve with jam, clotted cream* and strawberries, preferably at a very British afternoon tea party

* I eat my scones the Cornish way (jam then cream), see here for an amusing article on the long-running debate between Devon and Cornwall about how scones ought to be served!

Herman the German Friendship Cake

I gave you a sneak peak of Herman the German Friendship Cake in this post, but now it's time for the full review.

I received a bag of 'Herman' with a simple sheet of instructions (similar to these) from a colleague last week. I've spent the past ten days keeping him alive (you can tell he's still alive because the mixture bubbles), feeding him flour, sugar and milk on day four and then finally dividing him up to share the Herman love before baking him.

Adding apples, sultanas, cinnamon mixed with milk, flour and sugar:

Ready for the oven with brown sugar and melted butter drizzled over the top:

Fresh out of the oven:

Thrifty re-use of a Fudges savoury biscuit tin to take the finished product to work:

In all the excitement, I forgot to take a photo of the portions, ready to go, but I hope I will have an update and a new Herman to try soon!

*Update- Herman turned out to be quite a tasty cake, the apple worked well and made it soft and moist*

Birthday Cakes

Tomorrow is my Birthday, so this evening I have been busy in the kitchen making cakes to take to work. Here is a quick sneak peek (recipes to follow!)

Lemon Cupcakes

Chocolate Brownies

Dave has hinted that I'm getting something to help take better photographs (?!) so watch this space for beautiful food and craft pics to come...

Coffee Cupcakes

Recipe: Coffee Cupcakes

Coffee cake is a favourite treat of mine, I love the flavour and smell. This recipe only uses one egg and 135g of butter (which tend to be the expensive ingredients in baking) to make 12 cupcakes, so does fairly well on the thrifty scale. It's adapted from Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery, which is one of my favourite books and is full of cupcake recipes for every occasion.

A box of these would make a lovely gift for a coffee (or cake) lover.

Ingredients
60g unsalted butter (remove from the fridge half an hour before cooking)
60g demerara sugar
60g light brown soft sugar
1 egg
60g self-raising flour, sifted
60g plain flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon coffee (espresso/instant whatever takes your fancy)
60ml semi-skimmed milk

For the icing:
75g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon semi-skimmed milk
1 teaspoon coffee (espresso/instant)
150g icing sugar, sifted

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180℃/160℃ fan/350℉/Gas Mark 5 and line a 12 hole tin with cases (I used standard size in this recipe, you'd need to make more mixture if you wanted to use muffin size)

2. Cream the butter and both sugars using an electric mixer, until the mixture is pale and smooth

3. Add the egg and mix again for a few minutes

4. Combine the flours in a separate bowl

5. Mix the coffee, milk and vanilla extract in a jug and stir to combine

6. Add one third of the flour mix to the creamed butter/sugars/egg mix and beat well

7. Add one third of the coffee/milk/vanilla mix and beat well

8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until all of the milk and flour mixes have been added

9. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases, filling them to about two third full

10. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until golden and slightly risen and an inserted skewer comes out clean

11. Whilst the cupcakes cool on a wire rack, prepare the icing by mixing the butter, milk, coffee and sifted icing sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy

12. Ice each cupcake and decorate with grated chocolate or a chocolate covered coffee bean if you wish

Enjoy your lovely indulgent treat!