Brilliant Banana Cake

Ripe bananas are not everybody's favourite fruit, but if you've bought them, do you really want to bin them? Why not make delicious banana cake, and remember that if you don't have time to make one today, you can freeze the ripe bananas until you do.

Prep time: ~15 minutes

You need:

Butter- 125g

Sugar-3/4 cup

1 egg

ripe, mashed bananas-2

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1/4 cup of milk

you could also add a complementary flavour such as vanilla, poppy seeds or think about substituting some of the sugar with a brown or muscavado sugar.

To make:

Take the sugar and butter (and vanilla if you are using) and melt in a saucepan. Add the bananas and mix well. Beat the egg and then mix that into the mixture in the pan, followed by the flour. When the mixture is well mixed slowly add the milk and mix gently. Put the mixture into a cake tin and bake for around 4o mins at 170 degrees/ Gas mark 3-4.

Delicious :)

To serve:

Excellent as a cake, it is also wonderful hot with cream or vanilla icecream as a warming pudding.

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Don't want to waste banana skins? Make them into fertilizer

photo with thanks to KCanard

Traditional Irish Curd Cake

This curd cake is not only based on a traditional recipe, but it also gives you the opportunity to use up milk that has gone sour, by turning it into the cottage/ cream cheese that you need for the recipe. Please look at our post "milk it" to find out how. Also an opportunity to use up broken biscuits and left over egg yolks.

Traditionally this would have had a pastry crust, but in the interests of health, and speed, you might want to just bake the mixture in an oven-proof dish, or you could experiment with using broken digestive or ginger biscuits as an alternative base.

Lemon and Vanilla Curd Cake
You will need:

• 175g/ 6oz sweet shortcrust pastry or a pre-bought pastry case (if using)
• 50g/2oz caster sugar (+ 1 tbsp for the topping)
• vanilla essence or extract
• half a lemon (juice and grated rind)
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 2 egg yolks
• 225g/ 8oz cottage cheese (homemade or bought)
• 2 heaped tablespoons of plain flour
• 1tbsp melted butter

1. Preheat oven to gas mark 4/ 180°C/ 350°F
2. If you are using pastry: warm a baking sheet and grease a loose-bottomed flan tin. Roll out the shortcrust pastry until thin, then line the flan tin with the dough, trimming off any excess. Chill pastry case (that you have made or bought) in the fridge.
3. If you are not using pastry put your broken biscuits into the bottom of a dish for a more informal but equally delicious family pudding. Ignore this step if you simply want a set curd putting without pastry or biscuit.
4. Sieve the cottage cheese, or your freshly make paneer/ cream cheese.
5. Cream together until fluffy the butter and sugar, before beating in the egg yolks, 1 heaped tbspn flour, lemon zest, lemon juice and the cheese. Mix well.
6. Spoon the mixture into the pastry case/ onto the biscuit base or put into the dish on its own.
7. Mix together together the beaten egg, one tbspn flour, spoon of caster sugar, 1tbsp melted butter sugar (you might also want to add further lemon zest). Spatula evenly over the curd filling.
8. If you are using pastry in a flan tin, pop it onto the warmed baking sheet. Otherwise just put your dish into the oven and bake for around an hour. When it is done the top shoul dbe a little brown and a bit firm.
9. Best served cool, not chilled. You could dust with sugar or garnish with grated lemon rind.

photo with thanks to chotda

Heidi Swanson's ANZAC cookies

I cooked these from a recipe from Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks blog which I love.

They are DELICIOUS. And very easy. I first made them for a birthday picnic for around 20 friends and they went down a storm. Oats are cheap,

Here is her recipe:

There are many other things you can do with the tasty Anzac dough. It's great as a cobbler topping, or even a tart base. Leftover cookies keep well in an air-tight container for a few days. Have fun experimenting with other zests or spice additions, anything that pairs nicely with oats and coconut will likely work here. For a more traditional Anzac cookie leave out the orange zest and orange blossom water.

You need:
1 cup flour (all-purpose or whole wheat pastry)

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup fine grain natural cane sugar OR brown sugar

1 cup finely shredded non-sweetened coconut (dessicated coconut)

scant 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup butter, cut into little cubes2 tablespoons golden syrup or honeyzest of one medium orange
1 tablespoon boiling water

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon orange blossom water*

To make:
Preheat oven to 325F degrees. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl; flour, oats, sugars, and coconut. Mix well.
In a small saucepan over low heat combine the butter syrup (or honey)I made it with butter and sugar, but you cold easily use golden syrup, which is also more typical for ANZAC biccies, and orange zest. Stir until melted and remove from heat. In a small bowl whisk together the boiling water and baking soda. Stir it into the butter. Now pour the butter mixture over the big bowl of oats and stir. Add the orange blossom water and stir again. This is a dough I like to mix it with my hands to make sure the butter is evenly distributed and the dough is moist throughout. I baked this batch of cookies in a well-buttered, heart-shaped cast iron pan, but you can simply drop them by the tablespoonful onto parchment lined baking sheets. Make sure they aren't too flat or they will get crispy. Bake for about 12 minutes or until deeply golden.**
Makes 18 - 24 medium cookies.

*Orange blossom water is sometimes available on Amazon.com, for example here and here. I also find it regularly at places like Whole Foods Markets and/or other natural food stores.
** The most recent batch that I baked in the heart-shaped pan took more like 20 minutes to fully bake and brown. Free-form on a baking sheet will take less - 12 minutes or so.

• If you are diabetic you might want to use agave nectar in place of the sugar/ syrup.
• Think about adding dried cranberries, raisins or chopped dried apricots.

photo- from Heidi's blog

Carrot Halva

Halvas are eaten from Bosnia to Bangladesh, and as far South as Somalia. This is a recipe for a delicious sweet dish, known as Gajor Halua in Bangladesh. This is an exciting, cheap, fairly healthy, gluten free pudding.

You need:

• 1 kg carrots/ 2.2lb
• 1 litre/ 2 pints milk
• 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds
• 3/4 cup water
• 3 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter)
• 2 tablespoons raisins 2 tablespoons almonds (blanched& flaked)
• 2 tablespoons pistachios450 grams/ just under 1lb Sugar

To make it:

1. Soak the raisons in water for about half an hour
2. Prepare the carrots: wash, peel and grate them.
3. Bash the pistachios, in a plastic bag, into small pieces with a rolling pin.
4. Put the water into the pan. When it starts to boil add the carrot. Cook for 6 mins.
5. Pour in the milk and cook gently for one hour. You will need to stir it now and then
6. Add the sugar, mix thoroughly, cook until all of the sugar has dissolved and the milk is absorbed by the carrot.
7. Add the ghee (clarified butter). Simmer for 2 or 3 mins.
8. Add the crushes cardamom (or powder) and the soaked raisins. Mix again.
9. Remove from the heat and put into a serving dish.
10. sprinkle the nuts on top.
11. You can serve this hot or cold

Alternatives
There are many other types of halva, and hopefully we will be able to share some more here. To give this sweet an amazing (and natural) colour, why not add sliced beetroot, which you can remove before serving, to the milk?

Photo with thanks to Peter Rivera

Dangerous Chocolate Cake

This cake is delicious, simple and quick. Perfect for when you have forgotten to make pudding!

You need:

• 4 tablespoons flour
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
• A small splash of vanilla extract
• 1 large coffee mug (If you need a quick fix) or divide into ramekins (cups and ramekins need to be microwave safe)

To make it:

1. Pop dry ingredients in the mug and mix well.
2. Add the egg, mix again
3. Add milk, oil, mix.
4. If you are using chocolate chips mix them in with the vanilla.
5. Put the mixture in the microwave and zap for 3.5 mins at 800 W (compensate more time for lower power)
6. Don't worry if the cake rises above the top : )
7. Let it cool a bit, and eat!

photo thanks to gurke