Monday Baking

I had a few overripe bananas I had stashed in the freezer and I finally had some time after work to try out a banana cake recipe.

Photo credit http://www.whitcoulls.co.nz/

This one is from Annabel Langbein's book called Eat Fresh, Cooking Through the Seasons. It's a wonderful book which takes your through the season's harvets to encourage you to eat fresh, locally grown food. Most of the recipes are built up from her own garden and many of them are fantastic.







Here is the basic recipe for the banana cake:

250g softened butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp natural vanilla essence
4 very ripe bananas, peeled & mashed
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup hot milk
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 170degC (sorry i'm in Celcius down here). Line a 23cm cake tin.
Beat butter and sugar until creamy.
Beat in eggs, then vanilla essence, then bananas.
Dissolve baking soda in hot milk and then add to mix.
Sift in flour and baking powder and fold in.
Then spoon into cake tin and cook for 50-60mins until cooked.
Cool in tin and ice.

For the icing I took another recipe of hers which is essential butter, freshly squeezed lemon, icing sugar and hot water. So good.

Yummy

And as you can see the cake has gone down a treat. I can't recommend her books highly enough and can't wait till I can get my hands on some more. I've heard great things about The Free Range Cook.