Banana Bread

January 18, 2012

Banana Loaf

Oh my gosh you guys, Bananas are so cheap now!!! I’ve been counting the days until I didn’t need a personal loan to afford a bunch of these golden beauties. My morning porridge has been looking forlorn without its tropical friend added to the breakfast party mix. And banana lollies just don’t cut it these days.

On a serious note, I’m glad that our northern friends in Queensland are getting back to some semblance of normal after the terrible flooding of 2011 wiped out much of their banana crops (tropical Queensland being the banana-crop heaven of Australia).

I might be addicted to banana bread simply because I’ve gone without bananas for so long. But also, it’s pretty darn good. This is another recipe I’ve borrowed from my Mum’s archives. When she found a completely awesome recipe, she jotted it down in her gold-covered notebook, and if it was extra-special it got a sparkly sticker of a star next to it. This recipe is blue-star worthy, people! And yes, Mum is a teacher, how did you guess?

The secret to incredibly flavoursome and fragrant banana bread is to first let the bananas ripen to a blackened state over several days, then freeze them overnight. When you’re ready to bake, let them come to room temperature on their own. Add the extremely mushy banana innards to the ingredients, plus wring-out the banana juice hiding in the soggy skins as well. That part is extra-fun.

Bonus, this recipe is another one-bowl wonder. Less dishes, yay!

Lordy, when I baked this banana bread the scent wafted all over our apartment complex. Seriously, when I came back from shopping I could smell warm banana 5 metres away from the front door. So, you might want a second loaf on the go incase neighbours happen to “randomly” drop by…

 

BANANA BREAD RECIPE

 

2 Bananas, mashed
120 g Unsalted Butter
2 tablespoons Milk
1 teaspoon Bicarb Soda
1 cup Caster Sugar
2 Large Eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups Self Raising Flour

 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a medium loaf tin with non-stick spray.

Place butter and mashed bananas into a saucepan and melt on low heat. Stir in the caster sugar, bicarb soda and milk until the sugar appears to have dissolved. Let the mixture cool to room temperature before stirring in the beaten eggs and flour.

Pour mixture into loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes. Cake is done when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Serve warm or cool with butter.

Banana cake slices can be frozen and defrosted

{ 6 comments }

Chocolate cake

 

This week marks two years of The Cake Mistress. Thanks for reading, sharing your comments and emails, and just being generally awesome. Since switching to a charity aim mid last year, where 100% of this site’s income goes to a food-related charity, over $500 has been donated. So thank you also for helping reach that mark!

To celebrate I was going to bake the mother-of-all cakes with crazy layers and such, then I thought going back to my cake-y origins instead would be more fun. Having just flown back from spending time with my family over Christmas, I wanted a nostalgic taste from the past. So I baked the cake Mum used to make for us kids all the time. It was a brilliant after-school treat, even providing much bargaining power at recess.

Best of all, I realised this is the EASIEST cake to literally throw together. Everything goes in one bowl, then you walk away and make a cup of tea while the electric beaters whip the magic in to the cake for you. Finish with a simple chocolate icing and some sprinkles to make it fancy. Sidebar: a dropped pack of sprinkles travels a looooooong way. *cry*

Being at home made me think of all the growing-up and changes with time, so I made a list of the moments I’ve thought “oh hell, I’m getting old”. If you are a fellow 80s/90s lady, you might notice some of these happening too:

Signs You’re an 80s Baby Growing Up (aka Getting Old).

  • You hear a “new” song on the radio and you’re outraged at how they’ve poorly sampled, and thus ruined, your favourite song as a teen. Kids, the Black Eyed Peas did NOT write Time of Your Life.
  • That moment when YOU realise songs you loved were not originals either: Eminem’s Sing For The Moment? Aerosmith’s Dream On. Ice Ice Baby? David Bowie’s Under Pressure. Mind. Blown.
  • You support Leggings Are Not Pants.
  • You’ve said “the music was better in my day” at least once. It was better too, alright? The Macarena was just an aberration.
  • You’ve also said “the cartoons were better in my day”. She-Ra would open a can of whoop-ass on Dora.

Princess Power!

  • Actually, you’re saying “back in my day” with increasing regularity, and you’re not even being ironic or mocking the “olds”. Guess what, you are the “old”.

“Back in my day we didn’t have torrents: we had to pirate our music by waiting next to the radio with a blank cassette for our favourite songs, then press record and get really annoyed when the host would talk over the end of the song. “

  • The tween working in retail addresses the customer behind you as Ma’am, then you realise there’s no one behind you. You’re the Ma’am. Aww, seriously?
  • Twitter? Pfft. Back in my day, we had mIRC. And ICQ. On dial-up. And we’d mimic the sounds of the modem back at it while connecting to pass the time. We didn’t have Google –  we’d ask a butler called Jeeves, or use Alta Vista. And we made nice sites in GeoCities, like this one.  - (caution: may incite eye-gouging). You could never have too many GIFs.
  • You’ve lived long enough to see trends you thought were cool making a resurgence. And you now recognise their uncoolness. Hello double denim! Some mistakes shouldn’t be made twice.

Die ... of embarrassment maybe ....

  • You catch a heavy waft of Impulse on a gaggle of teens and your scent memory drags you to the terror of the high school change-room and the oxygen-starving cloud of Vanilla Kisses, Incense and Waterberry. And for a limited time, Spice Girl.
  • Gratefully realising that being an adult without a tramp stamp is more liveable than being a lame teen without a tattoo.
  • The smell of Passion Pop, Cruisers, Breezers or UDLs makes you sick.
Have there been any moments that make you stop and think “gosh, I’m getting old?”. Please share, so we can all feel better!

EASY CHOCOLATE CAKE

1 cup Caster Sugar
1/2 cup (85g) Unsalted Butter, softened
3/4 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Instant Coffee
2 Large Eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups Self Raising Flour, sifted
1 1/2 tablespoons Cocoa Powder, sifted
1/4 teaspoon Bicarb Soda
1 teaspoon Vanilla
Basic Chocolate Icing
Icing sugar mixture
1 teaspoon Cocoa Powder
2 teaspoons Margarine
Water
100s & 1000s to decorate

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.

Add caster sugar, coffee, flour, cocoa powder and bicarb soda into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the softened butter, milk, eggs and vanilla, and beat together in electric mixer for three minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Pour batter in greased cake tin and bake for 45-60 minutes. Cake is done when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean, and the dome springs back when lightly pressed.

Allow to cool in tin for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.

When cool frost with chocolate icing sugar and 100s & 1000s. To make the icing I just pour around 1 cup  or so of icing sugar into a bowl with the cocoa powder and butter, then trickle in enough water to form a spreadable consistency.

{ 7 comments }

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