can't be stuffed banana bread

This has to be the easiest, and I mean really, really easy, easiest baked good I have ever made. Seriously the hardest bit is peeling the bananas (which I guess can be almost tricky if they are frozen or very black). I do believe Grace could make this recipe pretty much by herself if she was keen, except she told me she doesn't like it because it has too much banana in it. Everyone else has said it is very nice. This bread also keeps very well in the fridge (and would freeze well), so I tend to double the quantity and make two loaves. Perfect for using up very ripe bananas. It is quite sweet, so I reduced the sugar quite a bit from the original recipe and I think you could reduce the sugar even more depending on how sweet the bananas are.

Last time I made this, I included some vanilla, some fresh nutmeg, some cinnamon, sultanas and a few leftover walnuts we had floating around the cupboard. The time before I put the scant remains of a packet of chocolate chips in. Sultanas are always good. But the optional extras are entirely optional, the bread still tastes lovely without them.

Ingredients

1x

2 bananas
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup self raising flour (I use wholemeal)
pinch salt

2x
4 bananas
tablespoons of golden syrup
1 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups of self raising flour
pinch salt

possible optional extras

vanilla extract
nutmeg - best cut from a whole nutmeg with a sharp knife - a whole different taste experience
cinnamon
orange zest
chocolate chips
sultanas
chopped walnuts

To make

• Line two small loaves with baking paper or grease well. Preheat oven to 180C.
• Using a good size mixing bowl, mash the bananas.
• Add golden syrup and sugar. Stir. Add egg, flour and pinch of salt. Mix well. Add in any optional extras. Mix well.
• Pour into loaf pans and bake for about 30 minutes or until skewer tests clean.
• Rest in tin before turning onto a rack to cool. Store in fridge wrapped in the baking paper and a plastic bag or tea towel.

How easy was that! The perfect snack as it is or with a touch of butter.

ps - it is called "can't be stuffed banana bread" because the weekend I first made it, G was suggesting (quite strongly) that I make something with the rotting bananas we had. They were so awful I thought it wouldn't work so I used the most basic recipe I could find. Because I really couldn't be stuffed. And lo it was good. A few adaptions and changes, and there we have it.

lemon and lime cheesecake

I do love an unbaked cheesecake. Made with cream cheese, cream and gelatine. And a crushed biscuit crust. Part of me feels like I should like the baked cheesecake more, but I really do prefer a well made unbaked cheesecake. Something to do with the creamy, slightly wobbly texture. Trashy but oh so nice. I don't tend to make them very often as they are not vegetarian due to the gelatine.

The success of this recipe depends on beating the cream cheese until it is very smooth before adding anything other than a little lemon or lime juice. And in getting the balance between the sugar and citrus right. I like to hover on the edge of danger here, but others around me prefer it if it isn't too lemony.

Crust

• I x 250g packet of arnotts ginger nut snaps (not plain brand)
• 125g of melted butter

I crush my biscuits inside a cloth bad with a rolling pin, but if you have a food processor, that would make it a whole lot easier. Just don't crush them too fine. Or your crust won't have texture. Stir in the melted butter. Place a piece of baking paper on the bottom of a spring form cake tin and clip together. Brush all around with oil or melted butter. Press biscuit mixture into tin and press down, including right into the corners with the back of a spoon. Place in fridge while you make the filling.

Filling

• 2 x 250g blocks of Philadelphia (or similar) cream cheese softened (back in the day when we had a microwave, I would cut it into chunks and zap briefly).
• 200ml pure cream
• 1 tablespoon of gelatine dissolved in 1/2 cup of boiling water and cooled
• 3/4 caster sugar (I have used plain white sugar and it works fine, you just have to beat it for longer. Brown sugar would also work fine and taste lovely but I quite like the pale colour of this cheesecake)
• the juice of 3 or 4 lemons and or limes, strained.

Beat the cream cheese in an electric beater until there are no lumps. If the cream cheese is a little hard, adding a small amount of the lemon juice will help. Add most of the remaining lemon/lime juice, the sugar and the gelatine and beat until the sugar is dissolved. Add the cream and mix gently. Taste for citrus/sugar balance. Add more citrus and/or sugar if necessary. When you're happy with the taste, beat the mixture on high speed until soft peaks form. Fill the crust, nearly to the top, and place back in fridge. The cheesecake will be ready to eat the next day. If there is any filling left over, place in a small bowl and have as a secret snack later that night. Yum.

To serve, run a knife around the edge of the tin and loosen the outside. The cheesecake should be easy to pick up with the baking paper. The baking paper will peel back easily once a cake slide or spatula is placed under the cake.

chocolate self-saucing pudding

Based on the recipe from Cooks Companion. Less sugar, plain brand cocoa (just don't use drinking chocolate with sugar in it), self-raising flour, brown sugar all the way through and more water. And no nuts, which just seem plain wrong to me in a pudding of this kind. Works fine if you forget to put the egg in. As I discovered tonight (come to think of it the mixture did seem a bit dry). But better with the egg. And ice-cream. Although cream will do. Really, really easy.

Ingredients


pudding
a scant cup of self-raising flour
pinch of salt
1/4 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of cocoa
1/2 cup of milk
40g melted butter
1 egg
some vanilla
a shake of cinnamon

topping
1/4 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of cocoa
1 1/2 cups of biloing water

To make
Preheat the oven to 180C. Put the kettle on. Grease a small deep baking dish. Mix all the pudding ingredients together. No need to use a beater. A spoon or small whisk will do.Sprinkle the dry topping ingredients over the top. Pour on the boiling water. Bake for about 30 minutes or until top is firm. Sit for 5 minutes (because the sauce will be really, really hot) and then eat with cream and/or icecream.

Easy chocolate cake

This is adapted from a cake featured in the Sunday Life section of The Age newspaper back in 2004. It has become my standard, we need a cake today, cake. I use milk instead of water and tend to ice it with a glace icing instead of ganache, partly because I like icing sugar icings and partly because it seems to suit this cake. This is as easy as making a packet cake. Really.

Cake ingredients
1 1/3 self-raising flour
5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups of brown sugar
125g butter at room temperature (or softened but not melted in the microwave)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2/3 cup milk

Making the cake

• Pre-heat oven to 180C, line and grease a 22cm cake tin (I use a tin with a removeable base).
• Measure and place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl.
• Beat with an electric beater until the mixture is pale and silky looking, like with packet mixes.
• Pour into the tin and smooth out. Bake for about an hour or until a knife pierced into the centre comes out smoothly. Allow to cool for at least 5 minutes before de-tinning onto a serving plate. (I know I should put it on a rack to cool but rarely do as we often eat this cake fairly warm.)
  

Icing the cake
1 teaspoon very soft butter
icing sugar
unsweetened cocoa
water to mix

Mix ingredients until you get a thick and smooth icing. I usually use about half a 250 gram pack of icing sugar with cocoa to taste. For best results let the cake cool for at least 30 minutes before icing.

White Christmas

I love White Christmas at Christmas time, but not stuff you buy from the supermarket. Yucky. This is much nicer. It's adapted from The Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits published by The Australian Women's Weekly circa 1990 (but a reprint of an older series. I wish I still had the cake book from this series, the new one just doesn't cut it in my opinion). The success of this depends on the freshness of the ingredients, especially the milk powder. Don't be tempted to make it with some old powder you have lying around the cupboard like I did one year. It was foul. Buy a new tin. Also the original recipe uses glace fruit and sultanas but I just buy a packet of mixed fruit which works well. I've also doubled the quantity, assuming that you're making it to give away or share with a lot of people. It's not the sort of thing you want have lying around the house for too long.

You will need

• 500g copha
• 2 cups rice bubbles
• 2 cups full cream milk powder
• 2 cups coconut
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 1 375 packet of mixed fruit with glace cherries

To make

Place dry ingredients in bowl and mix well, making sure all the fruit is separated. Melt copha in microwave on high for 2-3 minutes. Add melted copha to dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into lined tin. Smooth down and refrigerate. When set, cut into small squares.