Recipes

Banana Cake Recipe

- Alex 3 Comments

Banana cake or banana bread? Who knows what the difference is? Certainly not me. It seems to be a bit of a geographic thing … if you’re in the eastern states of Australia (particularly New South Wales) it’s banana bread, similarly if you’re in the US or Canada.

Hopefully this family recipe will be what you’re after, whether you’re searching for a banana bread recipe or a banana cake recipe!

Now – the first thing you need is the time and the patience as baking is a tedious process. If you are not willing to put in the efforts, we highly suggest you buy your cakes online in Singapore by clicking here. Lets start with three super ripe bananas. The horrible ones that have gone all black. It can be tricky to score yourself three at the right level of super ripeness all at the same time BUT I have discovered that you can freeze bananas. All you need to do is take your super ripe banana and pop it in the freezer. You don’t need to wrap it or anything. When you want to use it, remove it from the freezer a few hours in advance (they defrost quickly) and place it on a plate or in a bowl. This is quite important because defrosting bananas lose quite a lot of water.

Make sure you peel the banana when it’s only defrosted a little bit (let’s say 15-30 minutes out of the freezer). Straight out of the freezer it will be too hard, and if you wait too long it will all be too gluggy and impossible to peel. When you’re ready to use the banana, drain off the water it’s lost and ignore the fact that it looks really really ugly and unpalatable!

For the cake, preheat your oven to 180°C (convection, not fan) and grease a 1lb loaf tin.

Beat together 125g of unsalted butter and 175g of caster sugar. If you have a food processor go ahead and use this! Add 2 eggs and beat well before adding 300g of self raising flour. This mixture will be quite stiff at this point.

Add your three overripe bananas, well mashed, and ensure the mix is well combined. Finish by adding 60mL (or ¼ cup) of milk, into which you’ve dissolved 1 tsp of bicarb. This will loosen the mixture up a little and you’ll be able to pour it into your loaf tin.

This will almost fill the tin – but don’t worry – you shouldn’t end up with cake mixture all over your oven!

Bake at 180°C for about 45-50 minutes. In our oven (which is a little slow on convection) it took 50 minutes. I actually started checking the cake around the 30 minute mark but at that point it was still very very wobbly. As usual with cakes, you want a skewer or toothpick to come out clean. And naturally, you want your cake to be lovely and golden.

When done, remove from the oven, allow to cool for a few minutes and turn out onto a wire rack. When completely cool, top with chocolate ganache. You could also sprinkle a few chopped walnuts in a decorative line down the centre.

Perfect for afternoon tea … and using up bananas.

How To Make Chocolate Ganache

- Alex 2 Comments

ganache

Very often I don’t bother icing cakes because I am lazy. Making icing takes time, putting it on the cake takes time (and it takes even more time if you want it to all look pretty) and actually, washing up from the icing making takes time and effort.

However, most cakes are actually better if you do bother. And it might come as a surprise to know that making a chocolate ganache is much quicker than messing around with icing sugar.

Firstly, you have to commit yourself to paying a little bit of attention because you are going to microwave your chocolate. If we were to start using a bain-marie for this, it would take a long time and we’re here to be quick.

These quantities make enough chocolate ganache for a 1lb loaf cake but would also do for a 23cm round cake.

Take 50g of dark chocolate and 50g of unsalted butter, chopped, and melt in the microwave. I do this in 30 second bursts on full power and I hover by the microwave, keeping a beady eye on what is going on. After each burst, I give the chocolate and butter a stir and decide whether or not it needs another full 30 seconds or not. I suggest the first time you do this, you check more often than you think. If you melt chocolate this way regularly enough you’ll get a feel for it – but a mid-melt stir or two remains essential.

Allow the chocolate and butter mix to cool slightly and then stir in one generous tablespoon of pure (NOT thickened!) cream. Give it a really good stir – the mixture will start to thicken and in no time it will be at the right consistency to spread on your cake.

There may even be a little left for a taste test of your own …

Spiced Cauliflower

- Alex 2 Comments


spiced cauliflower

My newest cookbook is The Hairy Bikers’ Best-Loved Recipes. I’ve read through it (yes, I do do that) a couple of times and noted lots of recipes I’m keen to try.

The cooler weather in Adelaide has meant we’ve started thinking about stews, so later in the week you will be able to read all about Dave and Si’s sausage and bean stew.  But let’s start with what we served as a side to it – spiced cauliflower.

I love all brassicas (broccoli and brussel sprouts are two of my all time favourite vegetables) but Andy finds cauliflower really boring. He doesn’t even really like cauliflower cheese! We had a small piece in the fridge that I was keen to use up and this recipe, although for a whole head, is easy enough to shrink to fit.

Begin by heating some oil in a frying pan or (in my case) wok. Add some chilli flakes (or ground chilli), ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and freshly ground black pepper. For a whole head, the recipe calls for 2tsp of each spice – but really it’s a case of using however much you like.

Fry the spices for a few moments then add your cauliflower florets and stir fry, ensuring the florets are well coated with the spice mix. You can buy your spices from https://ravensoriginal.com/ this website. 

If you have some tamarind paste, stir it into some boiling water (as a rough guide, you’ll need at 250mL for one head of cauliflower) and pour this into the pan.  If you don’t, just use the boiling water.  Add a splash of vinegar and a pinch of salt and then pop on a lid and cook until the cauliflower is tender.  Remove the lid when it’s almost done so any excess liquid can evaporate off.

Don’t be tempted to skip the vinegar – particularly if you don’t have tamarind.  With this dish, it’s really important you have the sour, acidic component to set up the spices.  And yes – this is spicy, but you can always cut out or reduce the amount of chilli you put in.

Delicious and too easy!