Friday Food - Sour Cream Banana Cake

A few weeks ago a friend of ours came to visit, he was roped into building a fence for the meandering chickens who were ruining our garden {not that we have much of a garden, but having marauding chickens making things worse was not at all cool}. He arrived on our doorstep with bunches and bunches of bananas that he grew in his very own garden and he also brought homemade banana cake made from his very own homegrown bananas. Oh my goodness - the banana cake didn't last 12 hours and the bananas were excitedly received by three small children.


But, he did bring us 5 bunches of bananas that each had more than 10 bananas in each bunch. Even after force feeding the kids bananas at every snack and meal, there were still a lot left over. So I popped them in the freezer.


Just last week we were having a lovely aunt and uncle over for afternoon tea, so I thought I would make something with the bananas. When looking for recipes, I could only find recipes that needed one or two bananas, and that was just not going to use up all of my now defrosted bananas. I decided to triple the following recipe - yep - triple it. So off I went.... cooking cooking cooking....


I made one loaf tin and then one roasting pan {18cm X 30cm} FULL of banana cake. It was a LOT of cake. But it used up all of those bananas and also our overflow of free range eggs. So it was win win... Until Monday morning when I realised I had a fridge full of banana cake. I decided I needed to get it out of the house, so I sent a huge container of it to work with Mr Cool. It was a big hit. 


The recipe is as follows.... Feel free to double or triple it!

Sour Cream Banana Cake

Prep Time: 20 mins
Cooking Time: 50-60 mins
Serves: 8


Ingredients
125g butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup sour cream {or natural yoghurt or a combination}
1 cup mashed bananas {2 large, very ripe bananas}
2 1/4 cups self raising flour
1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda


Icing
60g cream cheese
60g sour cream
1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup icing sugar


Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, grease base and sides of a square cake pan, or loaf pan or slice tin
2. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together until pale and creamy. 
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
4. Using a metal spoon, gently fold in sour cream and bananas.
5. Sift over the flour and bicarbonate soda and gently fold through.
6. Spoon batter into prepared pan, Smooth surface. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Stand for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack.
7. To make icing: place softened cream cheese and yoghurt/sour cream into a bowl with the lemon juice. Sift in the icing sugar. Beat with electric mixer until thick and creamy. Add more icing sugar if it is too thin, or a splash more lemon juice if it is too thick. Spread onto cake when cake is almost cool.

Variations...

• I used half low fat natural yoghurt and half low fat sour cream and it was delicious. Next time, I will only use yoghurt, the slightly sour yoghurt was a great contrast to the highly sweet bananas. 
• This would make a great dessert cake, leave the icing off and make a caramel sauce. Melt butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan on the stove, when sugar is melted, before it boils, add some cream and stir through. Serve over warm cake - add ice-cream if you dare.
• You could add nuts to the cake itself or sprinkle over the top when it is iced.
• I think I will try adding some shredded coconut to the cake next time I make it, banana and coconut is a great taste combination.

This is part of my regular Friday Food posts - even though it is Sunday... 

Friday Food - Gingerbread Men

I love the idea of gingerbread men, in fact, I don't just have a gingerbread man cookie cutter - I have a FAMILY of them - I also have an angel gingerbread cutter. But, I have not had much success making them, until now,  I have found a recipe that works really well. I had to share.


This is the recipe I made when I made train biscuits for BabyCool's birthday and also for the Christmas craft I did with Miss Z and her kindy class yesterday. So it has been tested by B twice!

Gingerbread Men

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 10-12 minutes
Makes: 20 or so


Ingredients
125g butter
2 tbs golden syrup
185g sugar
1 egg, beaten
320g self-raising flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger


Method
1. Line trays with baking paper and preheat oven to 165 degrees Celsius.
2. Melt butter and syrup, then add sugar and egg.
3. Add flour, salt and ginger, mix well. The dough will be really soft and buttery.
4. For gingernuts, drop teaspoonfuls onto trays {or roll into balls}
5. For gingerbread men, allow the dough to cool almost completely {this could take 45-60 minutes - the dough really is too soft for rolling I found}. Roll out the dough and cut with cookie cutters.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.


Variations

• You could substitute honey for golden syrup.
• You could add 1/2 tsp of mixed spice for more 'spiciness'.
• If you are going to roll the dough into balls, you could roll them in caster sugar before placing onto the trays.
• Do I dare suggest choc-chips? Yum!
• You could decorate your gingerbread men with sultanas or choc chips prior to baking -or -
• You could decorate them after baking with m&m's sprinkles and other pretty things, like some clever 3 year olds did yesterday... 

I will be making these again before Christmas and I think I will decorate them in more Christmasy tones. I might even put a hole in the top and thread some ribbon through like Christmas ornaments.... Oooh - what a great idea! I must write that down!


Happy baking peeps!