Random Recipes - Banana Loaf

As I mentioned in my last post I took part in Dom's Random Recipe Challenge this month. The challenge was "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" and I was paired up with Jac from Tinnedtomatoes.com. She picked a random book and a page from my cookery book collection by selecting a random number.


Jac picked number 4 and that turned out to be........ The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook!

She picked page 66 which was a banana loaf. It is a very easy and yummy recipe. It's spicy and moist and lovely with a cup of tea. I had a few slices when I baked it then let the boy have it to eat at work.

Banana Loaf

270g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
200g bananas, mashed
280g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
140g unsalted butter, melted

1. Grease your loaf tin and preheat your oven to 170C

2. Cream together sugar and eggs. Beat in the mashed bananas.
3. Sift in the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger to the sugar mixture. Mix thoroughly.

4. Pour in the melted butter and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed.
5. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and smooth over. Bake for about 1 hour, or until when inserting a toothpick in the centre, it comes out clean.

6. Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack. 

Thanks very much to Dom for the fun challenge and Jac for being a lovely partner! She had the great idea of trying out recipes on each other blogs. I tried out her scrummy coriander and chickpea patties and she made my key lime pie.

What a yummy weekend!

Easy Coriander and Chickpea Patties - tinnedtomatoes.com

This month I am a newbee to Dom's from Belleau Kitchen's Random recipe challenge.

This theme this month is "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours"

The idea is Dom pairs you up with another blogger and then you each pick a number which corresponds to a book in each others collection. You then pick a page number and voila random recipe.

I was paired up with Jacqueline from Tinnedtomatoes. She had the great idea that we would try out a recipe on each others blogs as well, so I tried: Easy Chickpea and Corriander Patties.

Jaqueline is a vege and blogs about yummy nutritious family friendly meals. She has a little boy and even has a blog just about food for him!

It was a struggle picking a recipe from her site (because they were so good!) I decided to choose something slightly different and go for a savoury dish. She has a great selection of really tasty recipes on her and a useful drop down box to help find the type of meal you want. Some other gems I found and definitely want to try out are:

Curried Parsnip and Sweet Potato Soup

Herby Spring Pasta

Moroccan Parcels

The best part is these are "real recipes" you can make for a quick after work meal or a nice dinner party. Have a look for yourself, I am sure you will find some yummy treats to try out!

I made this for Charlotte and Joe. Charlotte is a vege too so I introduced her to tinnedtomatoes.com and she has chosen loads she wants to try out already. The patties were delicious and even though I usually can't eat a meal without meat in (sorry Jac!) these were great and I will be making them again. A very easy mid week meal!

For the random recipe challenge I choose book 4 and page 216. You can see what Jac made here. I will be posting my random recipe soon, Jac choose book 9 and page 66 for me so wait and see!

Ginger Bundt Cake

• What should I wear?

I seem to be asking myself this everyday and not it a normal "my wardrobe is full, but I have no clothes and hate everyone way" but because the weather is so random. Hot, cold, humid, rainy?!....who knows. Now as much as I love it not being too cold, I would rather the weather made up it's mind and I knew what was going on. I mean it's October, enough already, I want my cool crisp nights and snugly jumpers!

If the weather won't embrace the correct season I sure as heck will! Cue this spicy, rich ginger cake! I absolutely love winter and am really looking forward to Halloween, Fireworks night and Christmas (but we won't mention that yet). Anything that reminds me of the winter season is a favourite in my book. Ginger is so warm, flavoursome and lovely in this cake.

• I used to make Bundt cake's all the time with my mum and grandma in america. They always produce moist cakes - something to do with not having to cook the middle of the cake - and they look great.

The trouble is getting it out of the tin (you can only grease the crevices so much) but it always seems to break a bit every time. I mean I don't mind so much because I use icing as a sort of glue which means you may get more icing as an added bonus when you tuck in.

I was super pleased recently when I found a silicone bundt tin! It is great, the cake comes out of the tin perfect every time.

• I used a recipe from Allrecipes.co.uk. I love this site, It's really useful reading people's comments and making a tried and tested recipe. I did adjust it slightly because of the comments- my version is ingredients below.
• 100g caster sugar
• 125g butter
• 1 egg
• 100ml treacle
• 125g Golden syrup
• 300g plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2/3 teaspoon ground ginger (or use fresh if you can)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 250ml hot water

I topped it with cinnamon cream but it would also go great with cream cheese icing.

1. Whisk double cream, with half a teaspoon of cinnamon, until it forms soft peaks.

2. Slather on top - lovely and fresh!