Banana Loaf Cake

This cake has been my staple 'healthy lunch box treat' for a couple of years now - ever since I found it in the 'Cook Yourself Thin - Quick and Easy'. It's great for those days when you feel you've eaten a few to many bakes but can't face the idea of the day without one! I've always stuck exactly true to the recipe, but this time I decided to go off-piste. The recipe calls for walnuts but, being without them, I turned to pecans. These always lend themselves to a more toffee-like flavour so I thought I'd make a few adaptions to continue this idea: the addition of chewy sultanas and the substitution of some of the light soft brown sugar for dark molasses. I also substituted half of the white flour for wholemeal - adding depth and making them that little bit healthier - I don't think this takes anything from the flavour... otherwise I wouldn't have added it, as flavour comes first of course!

Ingredients (makes 7 slices in a small loaf tin - about a 500g one if you can):

50g margarine

40g light soft brown sugar

45g mollasses/dark soft brown sugar

1 egg

150g mashed banana (peeled weight - about 2 bananas)

50g self raising wholemeal flour

50g self raising white flour

15g chopped pecans (plus about 5 halves for the top)

50g sultanas

Method:

1. Beat margarine and sugar until light and fluffy (this will take a fair bit of beating with the molasses!)
2. Beat in the egg.
3. Fold in all remaining ingredients apart from the pecan halves.
4. Grease and line a loaf tin and pour in the mix.
5. Top with the pecan halves then cook in the oven for 45mins - 1hr (check it and remove when a skewer comes out clean).
6. Remove from the tin when fairly cool, then leave on a wire rack to cool completely before storing in an air tight cake tin.

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Orange and Lemon Drizzle Cake

Not many students will admit to enjoy going to school, but on a Friday, I will happily do so openly... it's 'Cake Friday'! It seems teachers have accepted the fact that concentration levels are dismally low on a friday afternoon, and that a short interlude of cakey hapiness leads to a much-needed energy boost afterwards. Today was my turn to bake and, one again, I saw it as a chance to experiment. I really fancied making a lemon drizzle cake but, with a class full of fairly fussy eaters, I thought I'd need to steer away from anything too sharp or bitter. To do this, I made it a predominantly orange drizzle cake as this gave a slightly sweeter flavour, but still keeping a certain level of sharpness. I did however weaken on the drizzle topping - pure orange juice and sugar was just too sweet, so the addition of a little lemon juice balanced it out... if they didn't like it, I'd eat it! (Fortunately they did like it, so no problems there!)

No picture today I'm afraid - this was all made in a bit of a rush (as I'd forgotten that it was my day until very late the night before). Nevertheless, I'm very pleased with the results.

This recipe is adapted from the Lemon Drizzle Traybake Mary Berry's Baking Bible (again!). Aside from the orange/lemon swap, I also swapped the 2tbsp of milk in the cake mixture for 2tbsp of orange juice to heighten the flavour.

Ingredients:

Cake

110g marg
110g caster sugar
140g self raising flour
1tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
Zest of one orange (and 2tbsp of the juice)

Crunchy Topping

90g caster sugar
Remaining juice of the orange and the juice of a quarter of a lemon.
 - mix these together and add a splash of water/more juice if it's too stiff to pour onto the cake.


Method:

1. Beat the marg and sugar until light and fluffy
2. Beat in the eggs.
3. Carefully fold in the remaining ingredients.
4. Grease and line a 20cm by 20cm square tray tin (or a loaf tin if you'd prefer a deeper cake - you'd need to watch the cooking time if you did this as it may take longer to cook through the middle).
5. Pour the mixture into the tin and cook in the oven at 160 (fan) or 180 (no fan) for about 30 minutes (until a skewer comes out clean).
6. Most recipes tell you to remove the cake from the tin once cooled, then pour on the lemon/orange/sugar whilst it's cooling on a wire rack. I don't do that - whilst the cake's still slightly warm, remove it from the tin (so that it doesn't stick), then place it back into the tin. Make a number of stabs in the top of the cake to help the drizzle soak in. Now pour over the drizzle mix, right to the edges of the tin and leave to set. Once cooled and set, carefully remove from the tin and serve/store in a cake tin. This method means you won't waste any drizzle mix as it pours off the side, but if you're worried about it sticking, just do it following the original method.

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Spiced Apple Cake

When experimenting with recipes, I have the habit of cooking tiny quantities - to avoid the likelihood of gaining about a stone in weight and using up twenty eggs a week. Today however, only a big cake would do. I wanted something I could slice a hefty wedge out of, not another dainty cupcake-sized trial. With it still being a bit wintery, I fancied something with a bit of spice and fairly dense.  I found two spiced apple cake recipes which looked worth a try, so I thought I'd combine the two. This recipe has been adapted from Mary Berry's Apple and Cinnamon cake in her Baking Bible, as well as Gordon Ramsay's Spiced Apple Cake in Healthy Appetite. I used Mary Berry's recipe for instruction on quantities and method, but I looked to Gordon for inspiration for a few flavour tweaks. I found Gordon's recipe included a more varied range of spices and he used all wholemeal flour rather than just white. I set on a 50:50 ratio for the flour as I thought a bit of wholemeal would give it a slightly nuttier flavour, but I didn't want to make it too dense by using all wholemeal. I also added mixed spice to the cake mix, rather than just adding cinnamon to the apple filling, as in Mary's case - I fancied that warming flavour spreading the whole way through.  For my own personal adaptation, I removed the walnuts from the cake mixture in Mary Berry's recipe, reserving them only for the top - this was only because my dad's not a fan of nuts in cakes, so I substituted them for extra sultanas - but you could just as easily add them back in (by using 100g each of sultanas and walnuts, rather than 200g sultanas).

Method and Ingredients:

Grease and line a deep, loose bottomed 23cm cake tin.

Beat together 225g light soft brown sugar and 225g butter or spread.

Add 3 large eggs, 200g sultanas, 100g self raising wholemeal flour, 125g self raising plain flour, 2 level teaspoons of baking powder and 2 level teaspoons of mixed spice.

Fold it all together and spoon half the mixture into the tin.

Peel and core the apples then chop them pretty finely (I diced rather than sliced) and combine them with 1 level teaspoon of cinnamon.

Tip this apple mixture into your tin (yes, it does look a lot!) and spoon on the remaining half of the mixture.

Sprinkle with some more light soft brown sugar (or I imagine demerara would work really well - I would have used it, but I ran out) and bake in a 180 degrees c oven (or 160 if you use fan) for 1 and a quarter to 1 and a half hours.

Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Dust with icing sugar to serve (and I'd recommend serving it with creme fraiche, greek yogurt or cream whilst warm).

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Mum's Tea Loaf

The snow's gone. It's raining. This calls for comfort baking. Whenever I'm stuck indoors I still like to bake, but I try to hold back a little on the fats and sugars - as I know I won't be out running it off anytime soon! Mum's tea loaf fits the bill perfectly. As the name suggests, it's great with a fresh cuppa, a good book and a comfy sofa... but there's no fat (in the recipe at least - see above!) and only a little sugar. I used earl grey tea for this one as it gives it a slightly floral note, but you can use whatever you like really.

I was particularly in the need of the comforting smells of cake today as I was having a bit of a 'growing up mope' - a bit of a "childhood's nearly over and what have I really achieved?" type complaint. I'm no olympic athlete, I'm not in a band or dancing on the west-end and I'm not a super-successful entrepreneur. I've experimented with a lot of hobbies, but they've all just fizzled out over time - ballet, gymnastics, violin, drums, tennis... my 'quit' list goes on. I came to question, "why didn't I just pick one and become really good at it?", "why did I never see the big picture?". My mum had the best advice, she said that if I was destined carry on with a hobby, I never would have doubted it, I would never have asked to quit, or found excuses not to go, I would have just done it no questions asked because it made me happy. And then I thought, isn't that what baking is to me? I've done it since I can remember, I never get bored of it, and I never question why I want to do it, I just do... So I got out the flour and turned on the oven.

Ingredients and method:

Soak 225g sultanas in 225ml earl grey tea (for a minimum of 2hrs)
Add 1 egg, 85g light soft brown sugar and 170g self raising flour and mix.
Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin (about a 900g one).
Cook for 45 mins at 180 degrees then cook for a further 30 mins at 150 degrees c (I used fan).
Leave to cool slightly, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
Serve in cold slices with butter or spread.


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