You'll Go Ape... For My Banana Muffins!

Yeah, yeah...we're all on new year diets, etc etc...but these easy peasy banana muffins don't count, do they? After all, they're one of your recommended 5-A-Day fruit and veg!

What you need

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream (or crème fraiche or plain yoghurt if you prefer)
1 tsp. vanilla essence
4 ripe bananas (mashed)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

What you do

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Beat sugar and butter in large bowl until light, then beat in eggs until smooth.

Add flour and soda, alternately with sour cream/yoghurt.

Add vanilla, bananas and nuts. Mix.

Divide batter among 12 paper lined muffin cups.

Bake at 180C/350F for 25 to 30 minutes.

Et voila!

Ridiculously Easy Chocolate Tart

If you want to awe your dinner guests... well, perhaps apart from almost burning off their eyebrows, lashes and 'taches in a freak accident involving paper napkins and candles.... serve them this dead-easy-to-make chocolate tart.

I've had nothing but positive feedback on it.... and I'm sure it has nothing to do with my guests' fear of my pyromaniac potential....


What you need:
1 packet of plain biscuits - HobNobs, Digestives, Graham crackers (depending on your geographical location)

80 g butter, melted

1 large bar (200 g) of good quality chocolate (I prefer dark, but you can use milk, nut, white or whatever takes your fancy)

1 packet of marshmallows

150 mL (2/3 cup) milk

250 mL (1 cup) whipping cream



What you do:
Prepare a biscuit base by crushing the biscuits (either in a food processor or by hand by placing biscuits in a clean bag on top of a board and crushing with a rolling pin) and mixing with the melted butter.

Press into a 25 cm pie tin.

Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 180C (160 with fan)/ 374F/ Gas mark 5 until golden brown.

Chill slightly in the refrigerator.


Place the marshmallows, broken chocolate and milk in a large glass mixing bowl. Microwave for approximately 2 minutes, stirring well every 60 seconds, until the marshmallows and chocolate are melted.

Cool slightly.

Whip cream until it forms stiff peaks.

Gradually fold the cream into the chocolate-mallow mix, and pour onto the biscuit base.

Place in the refrigerator to set; decorate with chocolate curls and serve.  Can be made at least a day in advance.

YUMMY!

Boozy 'n Easy Christmas Cake Recipe

Especially for FarmGirl, here is the recipe for my now infamous Christmas cake....

It really is easy, even for a novice like me!

Nigella would approve.....

Time
45 minutes preparation time
3 to 3½ hours cooking time

Ingredients	Imperial	Metric
Butter or margarine at room temperature (1 hour or so out of the fridge)	8 oz	230 g
5 medium eggs	-	-
Mixed Fruit (e.g. currants, raisins, sultanas, peel)	1½ lb	680 g
Glace cherries - roughly chopped	2 oz	60 g
Mixed spice	½ teaspoon	½ teaspoon
Ground almonds	2 oz	60 g
Demerara sugar	8 oz	230 g
Almonds - roughly chopped	2 oz	60 g
Self-raising flour	12 oz	340 g
Brandy or rum	4 fl oz	110 ml
Milk - if needed to adjust consistency of mixture	2 fl oz	55 ml

Note! You will need more brandy to add to the cake as it matures. 

Allow for another 4 fl oz / 110 ml.

Cooking utensils

1 cake tin - 20 to 25 cm (8 to 10 inch) diameter
A large mixing bowl

Greaseproof paper

Oven temperature
170°C, 325°F, Gas Mark 3 (reduce temperature for fan-assisted oven)


Method
Ideally, first soak the dried fruit in the brandy/rum overnight....

Grease the inside of the cake tin with butter, margarine or oil. Cover the inside of the cake tin with greaseproof paper....

Cream the sugar and butter, then slowly add the eggs.....

Turn the oven on now so that it is pre-heated to the right temperature.

Add the flour, ground almonds and mixed spice and gently mix them in. The object here is to mix all the ingredients well but not to 'knock' the air out of the mixture. Do this by using a spatula and gently stir in a figure of 8. It will take about 30 seconds to mix up all the ingredients....

Add the soaked mixed fruit, glace cherries and chopped almonds. 

Gently mix the ingredients together using a spatula as described previously. The consistency of the mix should be such that the mixture will drop off a spoon with some reluctance. If the mixture is too thick, add some of the milk and mix gently again.

Gently spoon the mixture into the cake tin lined with greaseproof paper. Level out the mixture using the spatula.

Make a small well in the centre of the mixture. This will prevent the cake from rising too excessively in the centre when it is baking.

My mom's tip: Stand the cake tin on a layer of salt on a baking tray to prevent burning!

Bake for 3 to 3½ hours (pre-heated oven 170°C, 325°F, Gas Mark 3), 20 minutes less for fan assisted ovens. Turn the cake round in the oven once or twice during baking to ensure that it evenly cooks. When the cake is cooked, the top will probably be slightly cracked. Check if the Christmas Cake is cooked properly by inserting a skewer or thin knife into the cake. If it's reasonably clean when you take it out, the cake is cooked. If there are bits stuck to the skewer / knife it needs cooking a bit more. Note! Ovens differ in how fast they cook so check your cake after 2½ hours and then every 20 minutes to see if it is cooked. Let the cake cool for a couple of hours then prepare it for storage. Cover with greaseproof paper then either wrap it in foil or store it in an airtight container. Ideally, the cake should be matured for a month or more before icing it. If storing the cake for more than two weeks, add a small amount of brandy to the cake every two weeks. The best way to add brandy is to turn the cake upside down, prick it with a fork in several places then sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of brandy over the base of the cake. Rewrap the cake as before, base downwards. Recipe was given to me by my good friend who is an expert cook....  Original can be found here

Yo-Ho-Ho... And A Bottle Of Rum

I think I've been watching way too many cookery programmes lately... first I was obsessed with Master Chef, then The Great British Bake-Off, and now I'm hooked on the Australian version of Master Chef. 

Or perhaps my still-almost-newly-fitted kitchen that comes complete with fully functioning split level ovens... as opposed to my old oven that had a broken door and three temperature settings - scorch, blacken and incinerate... has lulled me into a delusional state of thinking that I can actually cook, provided the recipe is not too taxing.

Either way, I have suddenly become rather interested in cooking and even more interested in baking... as you may have noticed from the content of my recent posts.

Do not be surprised to see strict-diet-weight-loss related posts shortly....

Just what every woman needs in the kitchen... a man who can cook!

So.... I decided last weekend I'd have a go at making our Christmas cake.

"What? In October?!!" I hear you cry....

Apparently, this is the perfect time to make that festive fare, leaving two months to "feed" the cake with the acoholic beverage of your choice....

And if there's one thing we have in abundance in this house, it's hard liquor.... not because we're alcoholics or anything like that (yeah!yeah! denial is the first sign!) but because we are always getting booze as gifts (our friends obviously do think we're partial to the odd tipple!). We're also rather fond of buying bottles of obscure liqueurs as "souvenirs" when we travel... bottles that get put in a cupboard and forgotten about long before the holiday laundry pile is depleted.

We could open a cocktail bar tomorrow, and have some very merry customers for a very long time.

The Christmas cake recipe I'd chosen suggests rum or brandy... and I knew I had a bottle of rum lurking in the back of the drinks cabinet, a bottle acquired in the Dominican Republic back in 2005. I think it was actually a freebie from the hotel room that we packed in our hand luggage at the last minute... you know, back in the olden days when it was still legal to fly with more than a fairy's thimble of liquids about your person?

Why is the rum always gone?

Whatever... the point is, we had a bottle of rum going spare and I was delighted to finally find a use for it, and free up some space in that groaning drinks cabinet. Approximately 5 hours later, with the Christmas cake successfully made (yes it does take a rather long time to bake!) I was feeling rather pleased with myself and decided to post something about it on the social network.... and it's not often that I do post anything because frankly, my life is just not that interesting (and yet I somehow manage to keep a blog running with the drivel of my daily life!) and more importantly, I don't feel the need to inform the wider world that I'm waiting for a bus... or describe in detail how my baby has been projectile vomiting over everyone. Mainly because I don't often take the bus... and I don't have babies.

Anyway, perhaps it was the shock of me actually posting something for a change that caused such a huge response... or maybe an otherwise slow day on FacePlantBook, but I sparked a massive debate about the fate of that bottle of rum. General consensus... there are better things to do with a bottle of rum than "waste it pouring it over a cake"!

Do you agree?

The Christmas Cake... and the bottle of rum that caused so much consternation

Anyone interested in the recipe for Christmas Cake? I'd be happy to post it....

Strawberries And Cream...

Nothing beats freshly baked scones, served with lashings of strawberry jam and decadent cream.

They are surprising easy to make, as I discovered this weekend....


Here's what you need for fruit scones:

225g/2 cups self raising flour

1/4 cup/50g dried fruit

55g/½ stick cold butter

1 level tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

150 ml/¼ pint milk

1 egg beaten with a little milk

Here's what you do....

Heat the oven to 400°F/205°C/Gas 6

Grease and flour a baking sheet.

Sieve the flour into a roomy baking bowl then add the butter, baking powder and salt. Quickly rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Make a well in the center and using a dinner knife, stir in enough milk to make a soft, pliable dough.

Turn the mixture on to a floured board and knead very lightly until just smooth then lightly roll out to 2cm / 3/4" thick.

Cut rounds with a 7.5cm/3" cutter or cut into triangles with a sharp knife.

Place on the baking tray and brush with the beaten egg and milk mixture. Bake near the top of the hot oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown and well risen.

Cool on a wire rack before eating.

Serve with butter, or lashings of jam and cream.

In Devon, scones are eaten with the jam on top of the cream, 

in Cornwall the cream goes on top of the jam

Cheese Scones

Add 1/2 cup /50g grated cheese and 1/2 tsp dry mustard powder to the mixture after rubbing in the fat and flour and continue with the basic recipe. Sprinkle the scones with 1/2 cup/50g more grated cheese before baking the scones in the oven.

Easy As Pie....

I have a very sweet tooth... and having equally sweet-toothed friends over for lunch is a great excuse to make that great British classic for dessert, banoffee pie!

Here's what you need...

300 g oaty biscuits*
60 g butter, melted
397 g tin Nestle Carnation Caramel**
3 large bananas
350 ml double thick cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
chocolate (to decorate)

* Suggest McVities Hob Nobs in the UK (USA/Canadian equivalent would be graham crackers, I believe McVities biscuits are available in Australia, and in South Africa, "Tennis" biscuits would be good)
** Dulce de Leche



Here's what you do....

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4.

Crush the biscuits, then add the melted butter and combine. 

Press the mixture into a 24 cm tart tin, with a removable base, in an even layer. Transfer the tin to a baking sheet and cook for 10-12 minutes, until lightly toasted and set. 

Leave to cool then gently release from the tin and put on a serving plate.

Spread the caramel over the biscuit base and chill in the fridge for 1 hour. 

Arrange the banana slices over the toffee. 

Whip the cream and sugar together to form soft peaks and spread over the bananas.

Decorate with grated chocolate.

And enjoy......