Banana and Honey Loaf

I do have a fondness for banana bread, it feels almost healthy because it's a bread, but I suppose I have to accept it's really cake.

Anyway, I ended up with a few over-ripe bananas and felt like being a bit more adventurous than my usual banana bread recipe. So I turned to my mentor Marry Berry, the recipe can be found here. The picture in the link makes it look really stodgy but they used 3 bananas and I used 2, so don't let this put you off. (The book recipe says 225g which I took to be unpeeled.) One important tip, squeezy honey is a lot less messy, I only managed to get it on the kettle, my sleeve and the scales for once.

The centre is nice and banana-y with the honey coming out more in the crust which is lovely and sweet. I had mine plain with a nice cup of tea, but it would go well with some butter too. Well worth a bit more effort, it might become my new standby. It smells amazing when it comes out of the oven too!

Baking?

I have been pondering lately what exactly is baking? Watching 'Baking Made Easy' on BBC2 I have some issues with Lorraine Pascal's definition of 'anything that goes in the oven'. This means on her show she's made chocolate cake, mille feuille but also gammon and macaroni cheese. This just seems wrong to me, but I can't quite say why. Loads of recipes are for, say, baked fish, but I wouldn't call this baking. I wouldn't limit it to sweet things eaither, as bread is sometimes savoury. The dictionary defines baking as cooking in a dry heat in an oven so I suppose she's right. I can't help feeling cheated though when she makes something meaty!

The show itself has some lovely recipes and ideas and is usually what it says on the tin: easy. The presenter is an ex-model, who having done a baking diploma and worked in restaurants now has her own shop. She is a good teacher giving hints and tips but when I watch I just don't feel she's a pro. For example when she made chocolate cake by adding chocolate to a vanilla batter she poured it into the pan without mixing it using a flexible spatula first, so it had an unmixed vanilla bit on the top. She supplies Selfridges, so her usual quaility must be high, but when I watch Delia or someone I usually think, wow I couldn't do it as good as that, but with her I think I could. Hmm

If you're interested the page is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/programmes/b00xnbkv

and you can find all the past episodes on iPlayer.

Mini cakes

I was lucky enought to get a mini cake tin for Christmas, and some bun cakes to use in them.

The pink ones are lovely and bright and I adore the sweet flowery ones. You can see them here beside a normal case.

I decided to keep my first attempt simple, using normal bun mixture. I made enough batter to do a dozen 'normal' sized buns, and ended up with 30 mini ones! So next time I'll cut the recipe down. Also I might overfill them slightly to make just 12 so I don't have to wait for one set to finish to make the last 3.

1 egg

2 oz caster sugar

2 oz self raising flour

2 oz margarine

1) Cream sugar and margarine until well mixed and lighter in colour

2) Beat in the egg

3) Mix in the flour

4) Spoon in to bun cases

5) Bake for 15 min at 180 C

I kept the decorations colourful with some chocolate and Smarties.

I also made some almond petit fours. As usual you had to lick them off the bun cases as they stick to the paper but I quite like them that way now.

The end result looked like a kids party :)

I'm trying to think of other things to do with my cake tin now. Mini cheesecakes maybe. Any suggestions?

Christmas Cake

I made the actual cake back in October (which was probably a bit late) using Mary Berry's standard Christmas cake recipe, feeding it with Cointreau a few times. Unfortunately I only got a chance to decorate it on Christmas Eve so didn't have much time.

I've always loved a design in one of my cake decorating books "The Home guide to Cake Decorating". It's a fantastic book and there's a template for the Three Kings with as a piped run-out with royal icing, it also has fancy collars round the edges.

Being pushed for time I decided to paint onto the cake. I've wanted to try this for a while after seeing beautiful cakes like this from Birthday Cake Party:

I used an edible marker pen to draw on the outline using the tempate in the book as a guide. I had wanted to get black paste for the outlines, but as luck would have it , it was the only colour sold out in the shop. I'd definately use it next time to get a stronger outline.

I then used food colours to paint. These worked out okay, but the colour was a bit thin and it was a bit watery for fine work. Lustre dust mixed with alcohol made for a much more effective result. Here the blue is food colouring and the purple and gold are lustre dusts. I kept the colours to a minimum as I liked the effect. The gold came out really sparkly, I can wait to use it again. I might get some silver too!

And the finished product. I did go over the lines a bit, but I was trying not to put any more fingerprints in the icing from leaning my hand on it. I think if I had more time I'd do a better job but I'd like to give painting another go. We still have some cake left but as it keeps practically forever I'm enjoying it!

Christmas Cupcakes

I am at last getting round to posting the rest of my Christmas baking, the trouble being that being so busy before these are now out of date. Maybe for next year though :)

Okay so I said I wasn't going to buy any more cutters after getting over 100 last Christmas but I couldn't resist a little holly plunger cutter. I made some chocolate buns and made them look like Christmas puddings. I think they're cute and chcoclate always goes down well. Maybe a little baking powder would have given them a more puddingy top, I'll have to try again for practice!

I even got some cupcake wrappers, they did unfortunately leave red on the cake pan and people's hands a bit, so I had to warn them. Worth it I think though.

Gruyere Cheese Stars

I was having a look through the Marks and Spencer's catalogue and found a recipe for these biscuits. They looked so yummy I had to try them! They were sooooo tasty I'm going to make more (Don't worry I didn't eat them all!). The only changes I made was putting them on a greased tray, not baking paper but them came of fine, also I used rosemary on the top.


The recipe is in the free Christmas magazine, but for those who can't get hold of it here it is:

Makes approx 26

125g Plain Flour
100g unsalted butter, diced
1/4 tsp mild chilli powder
100g Gruyere cheese, finely grated
1 tbsp milk
caraway seeds or rosemary
to decorate

1. Put the flour, butter and chilli powder in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the cheese and pulse again to bring the dough together. Shape into a flat disc, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 1 hour until firm.



2. Heat the oven to 180 C/350 F/gas 4. Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 5mm thickness. Use a 5-6cm star-shaped cutter to stamp out the biscuits, then re-roll the trimmings to stamp out more.

3. Put the stars on the baking sheets, brush the milk and sprinkle with caraway seeds or rosemary. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden. Leave to cool.

N.B. Per biscuit: 57 calories, 4.2g fat, 0.2g salt.

Practice Pies

As it's December I thought I'd do a little Christmas Baking. My Christmas cake is baked and being fed regularly with Cointreau. I did skip on making a proper pudding though, as I just couldn't handle watching it steam for 7.5 hours, especially as I've never steamed anything before. As I'm a firm believer in not waiting until one day of the year to eat your favourite things, I made some mince pies.

Strangely I've never made mince pies before, so these are my practice pies. The pastry recipe I used was a bit short, so I think I'll just have to give them another go (yay more mince pies!)

I like Christmas Trees as a wee change from the usual stars too. I also bulked up the sweet mincemeat with some stewed apples. It makes a moister filling and goes further. Off to sample them now, yum...