Tuesday 17 July 2012

Fool-proof baking

A friend of mine bakes the best banana bread so I got to wondering how difficult it could be and thought I'd give it a go myself. 

We often have over ripe bananas left in the fruit bowl so rather than letting them go to waste, this is the easiest recipe to follow to knock up some homemade banana bread that lasts for ages and tastes delicious....assuming you like bananas that is....if you don't, you may as well skip straight to the next recipe!

You'll need one round or loaf baking tin (lined with butter) and three mixing bowls. Or in my case, one cheap plastic mixing bowl and two saucepans as that's all I've got!

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. 
In the first bowl, mix 250g of plain flour with one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and a decent pinch of salt. 

In a larger bowl, cream together 115g of butter with 115g of dark muscovado sugar. Keep mixing until it’s as smooth as possible. 



In the third bowl, mash up 500g of over ripe bananas (roughly 5-6 bananas). Don't over mash them till they're almost liquid, stop when they're still pretty lumpy so you get squidgy banana pieces in the finished product.



Crack two eggs into the butter/sugar combo, add the mashed bananas then gradually stir in the flour mixture until it’s all mixed through. 



The above will take about 15 minutes and be done by the time the oven has reached temperature. 

Pour the mixture in to the butter lined cake tin, pop in the oven for 70 minutes and wait for the delicious smell to waft around your house!



Recap on ingredients (serves 12);

- 250g plain flour

- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

- Pinch of salt

- 115g butter (plus a bit extra for lining the cake tin)

- 115g dark muscovado sugar

- 2 eggs

- 500g ripe bananas


Remove tin from the oven and leave to cool.





Then the best bit; enjoy a slice with a layer of butter and a nice cuppa tea. Delicious. 






The other thing I whipped up over the weekend was a batch of the world’s easiest chocolate soufflés. Again these are really quick to throw together and sure to impress if you have friends over for dinner and don’t want to spend ages in the kitchen and missing out on all the fun!

Here’s how:

Butter 6 ramekin dishes

Break up 150g of dark chocolate (Green & Blacks if you really want to push the boat out) and melt in a bowl over a pan of boiling water with 100g of butter. Keep stirring together as they melt. 

In a mixing bowl, whisk together 4 eggs with 120g of caster sugar until it’s a really light and fluffy mixture. Fold in 80g of plain flour then finally stir in the chocolate mixture. 



Give it all a good mix then pour in to your ramekins. It's as easy as that. Promise. Remember not to fill them more than two-thirds otherwise they'll spill over whilst cooking. (If you’re prepping in advance, at this point you can cover them over and pop them to one side to bake later on).



Recap on ingredients (to serve 6);

- 150g dark chocolate

- 100g butter

- 4 eggs

- 120g caster sugar

- 80g plain flour

When you’re ready, whack them in the oven at 160C for 10 minutes or just as the sponge top has cracked open.




The result should be fluffy chocolate sponge with a gooey chocolate centre. Best served with good old vanilla ice cream.




Although I do enjoy a bit of baking I'm definitely no Delia. I'm all about minimal effort cooking so please do let me know if you have any similar fool-proof recipes for me to try...

xxxx

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