Monday, July 12, 2010

Loaf Cake

I am the Queen of the Loaf Cake. On Sunday afternoon I decided to use some of the fruit I have in the freezer and some of my store cupboard items and makes some yummy cakes. I had bought another half dozen eggs on Saturday, and subsequently added them  to the other dozen that were slowly aging in the fridge. I am always amazed at my ability to hoard the most lovely food in my cupboards, so, just like that, I can be baking ! It's great ! But then I suppose as a committed foodie this is hardly surprising.
So, I used up the glut of bananas in the freezer and made banana bread, here is what I used:

Ingredients
350gr SR flour
200gr butter (in my case PURE Soy margaine - animal free)
About 6 frozen and then defrosted bananas (this is important because they carry a lot of water, which you need to drain as much as possible)
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
A grating of Willy's 'real' solid cocoa
About 4 cups of mixed nuts and seeds (Probably 300-odd grams-mine had walnuts, pine nuts, brazil nuts, goji berries, sunflower seeds and pumpkins seeds )
100gr dried fruit (pre-soaked in water to plump up)
2 eggs

Method
1.Put the dried fruit in a bowl and cover with water (or rum!) to plump the fruit
2. Drain and mash the defrosted bananas.
3. In a different bowl, melt the butter, add sugar and then add eggs -  and mix.
4. Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking poweder) to the wet ingredients - and mix.
5. Add the dried fruit, nuts and seeds and bananas - and mix. (chop any whole nuts into smaller pieces)
6. Add the cocoa - and mix.

This filled three 1lb loaf tins. I line the loaf tins with loaf tin liners which I buy from Lakeland. This makes it really easy as it means you don't have to wrestle with greaseproof paper and margarine to grease the tin. It also makes life easy getting the cake out of the tin as you can lift it by the edges of the liner and put it straight on a cooling rack.

Cook at 200 deg. until the top is springy and lightly browned and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

We have yet to eat this so I must take a photo of them and add it here - Watch this space!



Actually, we haven't eaten it yet because at the same time as making the Banana Bread, I also made Tayberry and Lemon loaf cake which I am eating write now with freshly picked tayberries. There will be no photos of that as I just asked Biscuit Boy if there is any left ... his answer ... ?
A lip-smacking 'No'.

Exercise: Walk to work : 1.5 miles approx. Lunchtime run in Hyde Park: 4 miles, Feeling good.

3 comments:

  1. this recipe sounds lovely, I had never thought of freezing overripe bananas! How about a picture sometime?

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  2. Hi Cottage Garden Farmer ! I hope you like the photo. The recipe is great for using up overripe bananas, whether frozen or not. Usually when they're overripe I don't have time to bake so in the freezer they go for another day. Happy Tuesday !

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