Banana, Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

Here is another delicious concoction from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a domestic Goddess’. They are called cupcakes yet I think they are more of a muffin, in my thinking a muffin is a heavier stir everything together job whereas cupcakes are more like mini cakes, light , airy & made with lots of creaming of butter & sugar & so forth. Here is another opinion on the matter which seems to be in line with my thinking, what is your definition?

Banana, Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

125g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas
60ml (4 tablespoons) sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon bicarb of soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
300g plain flour
40g dried cherries, chopped
50g white chocolate, chopped or buttons
12 bun muffin tin with paper cases

Preheat the oven to 180c. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then, off the heat, add the sugar, vanilla and soft bananas, mashing them with a fork in the pan. Stir in the sour cream & the eggs and – still using your fork or a wooden spoon if you prefer – beat to mix. Add the bicarb & the baking powder, & stir in as well, then finally stir in the flour, cherries and chocolate. When the mixtures just blended, divide between the 12 muffin cases & cook for 20 minutes or until golden & springy on top. Remove the cupcakes in their papers to a wire rack & leave till cool. Makes 12.

Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter

Over Easter I whipped up another fantabulous breakfast from Bill Granger’s Sydney Food to snack on over the break. More on the pancake theme which I have to say is my favourite breakfast item at the moment & the honeycomb butter is truly special.

Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter

1 1/3 cups ricotta
¾ cup milk
4 eggs, separated
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
50g butter

To serve
Banana
Honeycomb butter (below)
Icing sugar for dusting

Place ricotta, milk & egg yolks in a mixing bowl and mix to combine.

Sift the flour, baking powder & salt into a bowl. Add to the ricotta mixture & mix until just combined.

Place egg whites in a dry clean bowl & beat until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites through batter in two batches, with a large metal spoon.

Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with a small portion of the butter and drop two tablespoons of batter per hotcake into the pan. Cook over low to medium heat for 2 minutes, or until hotcakes have golden undersides. Turn hotcakes and cook on the other side until golden & cooked through. Transfer to a plate & quickly assemble with other ingredients.

Slice one banana lengthways onto a plate, stack 3 hotcakes on top with a slice of honeycomb butter. Dust with icing sugar. Serves 6-8.

Note: Batter can be stored for 24 hours in the fridge covered with glad wrap before cooking.

Honeycomb butter

250g unsalted butter, softened
100g sugar honeycomb, crushed with a rolling pin
2 tablespoons honey

Place all ingredients in a food processor & blend until smooth. Shape into a log on plastic wrap, roll, seal & chill in fridge for 2 hours. Store leftovers in the freezer, apparently its great on toast too!

Banana & Raspberry Loaf

A quick & healthy mid week snack, that’s right it has fruit which is good for you & brown sugar & anything brown is healthy right? Ok, well that is what I tell myself anyway & really it’s not as bad as some cakes. Delicious & you can really taste the raspberries which give the flavour a great zing. Note I don’t eat it with butter as I don’t find it’s needed at all. The recipe is from the September 2006 Australian Table magazine.

Banana & Raspberry Loaf

Butter, to grease & serve
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
2 large ripe bananas, peeled, mashed
¾ cup (165g) brown sugar, firmly packed
¼ cup (60ml) vegetable oil
1 ½ cups (225g) plain flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
1 ¼ cups (190g) frozen raspberries

Preheat oven to 160c. Grease a 14 x 21cm loaf tin. Line base & sides with baking paper.

Combine egg whites, banana, sugar & oil in a bowl. Sift in dry ingredients & fold together until just combined. Fold through raspberries. Spoon mixture into prepared tn & bake for 1 ¼ hours or until skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in pan before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Slice, toast if desired & serve with butter.

Banana Maple Porridge with Buttered apples

Recently when I had Chloe I was lucky enough to be staying at Freemasons Hospital who have a ‘wing’ at the Park Hyatt which I stayed at for a couple of nights, much, much nicer than the hospital I can tell you, don’t get me wrong, Freemasons is nice but it is still a hospital as opposed to the Hyatt which had huge rooms, no one barging in whenever they felt like it, King size beds, a spa & lots of other luxuries including of course a fantastic menu to choose from! Michael & I also spent our wedding night there so it was nice & nostalgic for us to be staying there again (yes he stayed with me of course). Anyway the reason I’m telling you this is because while I was there I was hooked on there Banana Maple porridge on the menu which I had every day I was there, it was sensational so when I was flicking through Bill Granger’s Sydney Food book & saw a recipe for the same well of course I was dying to try out immediately. I’ve never made porridge from scratch before, normally I go the easy way & just add water & pop it into the microwave. This was a bit more time consuming but well worth the effort, it was sensational, I love it & cant wait to make it every weekend. It tasted exactly like the Hyatt’s so not sure who stole who’s recipe? The buttered apples on top were nice & of course I got to use up more Granny Smiths but next time I think I would just serve with some sultanas & extra banana a la Hyatt & save myself the extra effort & pan to wash up. Also I didn’t serve with extra milk as suggested as didn’t think it was necessary. Yet another winner from Bill’s brekky collection.

Banana Maple Porridge with Buttered apples

1 cup rolled oats
1 ½ cups boiling water
1 cup milk
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 banana, finely sliced

to serve
buttered apples (below)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
warm milk

Place oats and boiling water in a medium saucepan & stir to combine. Let oats sit for 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients to oats in the saucepan & stir again. Bring slowly to the boil over medium heat. Reduce heat & bring mix to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring often. The banana should almost dissolve. Remove from heat & let the porridge stand, covered for 2-3 minutes before serving.

Spoon into bowls, top with apples & extra maple syrup & a jug of warm milk on the side. Serves 2.

Buttered Apples

30g unsalted butter
½ kg hard sweet apples, peeled, cored & thinly sliced
1 tablespoon caster sugar

Place butter in a frying pan and melt over medium heat. Add the apples & sprinkle with sugar. Cook gently until the undersides of the apples are pale golden. Turn very gently to avoid breaking & cook until golden & translucent. Serve warm.

Banana Semi Freddo

Last night I had a couple of friends over for dinner, nothing lavish but a good excuse to try out some new food anyway. I am going to start with dessert just because it looked so good (in my opinion anyway). I have been loving ice cream & chocolate at the moment & had never made a semi freddo before so thought would give this recipe from Ben O’Donoghue and Curtis Stone’s Surfing the Menu a go. I t was pretty simple to make though did take quite a few bowls & in order to freeze you need to start this quite a few hours ahead or even the night before. The upside of this of course is that when you are ready to eat you just whip it out & serve, no fiddling around while the guests are there. Everyone loved the fact that it was full of fresh bananas & all in all it went down pretty well, nice to serve something a bit different for a change too

Banana Semifreddo

10 free range egg yolks
100g warmed honey
3 tablespoons rum or banana liqueur
4 tablespoons caster sugar
3 large ripe bananas
5 egg whites
500ml pouring cream
200g dark chocolate, chopped
55g unsalted roasted peanuts (other nuts may be used), finely chopped

Line a loaf tin or a glass pudding bowl with plastic wrap and place in the freezer to chill.

Place the egg yolks in a bowl with the honey, rum and half the sugar. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk until the mixture is light & fluffy and doubled in volume.

Mash the bananas with a fork, add to the egg mixture & stir to combine. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar until stiff. Fold into the banana mixture. Whip the cream to soft peaks & fold into the banana mixture. Add half the chopped chocolate. Spoon into the lined mould & freeze until set.

Melt the remaining chocolate by placing it in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (don’t let the bowl touch the water). Unmould the semifreddo onto a serving plate. Using a spoon, drizzle half the chocolate over the top in a criss cross pattern, then sprinkle with the peanuts. Drizzle the remaining chocolate over the top. Return to the freezer until required.

About 15-20 minutes before serving, transfer to the fridge to soften.

Coconut Bread

This morning for brekky carrying on with my sweet theme I made this recipe from Bill Granger’s Sydney Food. It is described as ‘never to be replaced’ on the menu at Bills. It is a Jamacican bread intended to be served with salt-fish relisg. Lime marmalade goes well too & it keeps well sliced in the freezer. Can be served toasted, buttered & dusted with icing sugar. Sounds very different & was incredibly easy to prepare. The end result was delicious, though to me it is more of a cake then a bread, much in the same way banana bread is really a cake. I had a piece nice & warm from the oven which was perfect & then tried one buttered & dusted with icing sugar, this was good too but to be honest I don’t think it needed the extra’s. I’m yet to try it toasted, sure will be great too.

Coconut Bread

2 eggs
300ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 ½ cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup caster sugar
150g shredded cocnut
75g unsalted butter, melted

To serve
Butter
Icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly whisk eggs, milk and vanilla together.

Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl, add sugar & cocnut and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and gradually stir in the egg mixture until just combined. Add melted butter and stir until mixture is just smooth, being careful not to overmix.

Pour into greased and floured 21 x 10cm loaf tin & bake for 1 hour or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Leave in the tin to cool for 5 minutes and remove to cool further on a wire rack. Serve in thick slices, toasted, buttered & dusted withicing sugar. Makes 8-10 thick slices.

Banana and Date Bread

Last week the latest edition of Donna Hay Magazine was delivered to my door & flicking through I knew I just had to make of this luscious sounding bread which even sounded remotely healthy, I mean it did have fruit in it so it must be good for you right? After popping it in the oven to cook for a tantalizing 1 hour & 10 minutes of the most lovely aroma wafting through the house, I did a bit of spoon licking, let me tell you the raw mix was pretty damn good, lucky I tried it after starting the cooking or none might have made it into the pan! Also I have to mention that one and a half cups of bananas is a lot at today’s prices so I was very lucky to score a bag of lady fingers at Coles going for $4.00 a kilo, they weren’t even that brown but were just perfect for mashing up for the cake mixture. The end result was divine, dates and bananas are another perfect combination I’ve decided, the cake was nice & moist on the inside & had a crispy outer shell, Michael and I both scoffed heaps while it was still warm out of the oven.

Banana and Date Bread

125g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ cups plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 ½ cups mashed banana
¼ cup maple syrup
1 cup chopped dates

Preheat oven to 160c. Place the butter & sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale & creamy. Gradually add the eggs & beat well. Fold through the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, nutmeg & cinnamon and stir well to combine. Stir in the banana, maple syrup & dates. Spoon the mixture into a 7 x 32cm lightly greased loaf tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tin & slice to serve.

Cook Islands Trip

We have just returned from our week of Paradise in The Cook Islands, as you can see from the photo, it is gorgeous over there & the pic doesn’t even do the place justice. We even got to spend a day & night in Tahiti as on the way there some very strong winds – apparently 120kms/hour, prevented us from landing so we had to divert, thanks to Air New Zealand for providing all we needed it was actually really enjoyed rather than being the disaster it could have been. They put us up in The Intercontinental which was beautiful, we spent the day swimming in their gorgeous & mammoth pool, walking around & chilling out. As for the food, well I know resorts aren’t usually the best but I have to say the buffet lunch was pretty awful so the eating extravaganza I had planned was not off to a good start.

All in all our food experience did not end up being that great apart from a couple of good feeds, for the most part I thought it was pretty awful, so as you can imagine I was very disappointed. Most of the food is imported from New Zealand which brings the prices up for a start, they are more or loss on a par with Australian restaurant prices which I wouldn’t mind paying if the quality was the same. The fact that it wasn’t & there really weren’t any cheap & easy options available for dinner didn’t make me any happier paying these prices. Lunch was a bit better with more available & at more reasonable prices. We had a tropical breakfast included daily which was fine, not much can go wrong with cereal, fruit, toast & pastries after all! I hate to write about bad experiences but really wasn’t left with much option. So anyway that being said now I will tell you about the good bits.

When we finally made it The Cooks, our first port of call was the stunning Island of Aitutaki, the photo is actually One Foot Island which is one of the surrounding motu’s (Islands). We did an Island cruise taking in a few surrounding Islands & some snorkelling – fantastic, and we had a local lunch on Honeymoon Island put together by the cruise people. This was great as they laid out a platter of traditional fruits & vegetables including Sea Grapes, these were very weird looking, a small branch with lots of very small ‘green grapes’ attached, squeezed with lime juice very tasty & apparently very good for you too, paw-paw, guava, lady bird bananas (as you can imagine I made the most of readily available bananas & stuffed myself with them for the whole week), some baked tapioca pudding – yum, steamed tapioca, purple kumara, fresh coconut & some fresh tuna sandwiches. Most of it was delicious though I was a bit iffy on the kumara & steamed tapioca. It was all served in a tiny little open hut on woven plates lined with freshly picked leaves of some sort, really enjoyed this experience.

That night was Sunday & not much is open on Sunday nights in Aitutaki so we opted for Te Vaka Bar & Grill, we caught a taxi there & the lovely driver gave us a piece of sponge cake for the ride that she had freshly baked that afternoon, it was delicious & moist & as you can probably tell the people here are very friendly, a very nice experience & cheap too! The restaurant was in a lovely open air building with the usual wicker furniture & Island feel, the food here was quite nice too, not fantastic but pretty good. Michael tried the Cook Islands speciality ‘Ika Mata’ which is fresh tuna marinated in lemon juice then tossed in coconut cream with onions, garlic, tomato & cucumber, he gave it the thumbs up, being pregnant I had to take his word for it as raw fish off the menu for me for now. I had Garlic chilli prawns, these were good too, with the marinade all making a lovely thick jammy sauce for the prawns. Michael then had some coconut topped Mahi Mahi (very nice fish if done the right way – we had a lot of it over the week) with calamari & I had an Island chicken curry, absolutely huge servings, don’t think I even ate half of mine. I then had some ice cream with freshly grated coconut & chocolate fudge sauce, their desserts were not overly creative! All in all it was a pleasant experience.

As you can probably tell by now they are very big on coconut on EVERYTHING in The Cook Islands, I was ok with it at first but by the end of the week hated it as most of the time thought it was way overdone & think it will be a while before I eat anything with coconut again which is a shame as I really like the stuff.

Anyway back on the mainland, Rarotonga a couple of places worth mentioning. FBI fish and chips , near the main bus stop in town. As we were getting off the bus we could smell it and you know what that smell does to you, we had no choice but to then find the place & order up. The fish was Parrott fish & the batter was light & crispy & all seemed to be cooked in nice fresh oil & at NZD11.50 for the 2 of us very good value for a change.

We went to Trader Jacks for dinner one night which is apparently the place to go, unfortunately I thought the food was crap here, our char grilled octopus was very tough & chewy & the coconut braised lentils it was served on well, yuk! For the mains Michael had some Wahoo fish, pan fried with garlic, lemon, fresh herbs & fries, this was nice & simple & really good, I ended up eating half of it as my Mai Mai wrapped in banana leaf & served on a bed of ginger, coriander, chilli & COCONUT cream was disgusting, I had one bite & didn’t go any further. So I was pretty hungry after this & ordered dessert, Chocolate & apricot cake with chocolate fudge & ice cream – bad mistake again, cake was dry & I don’t know what the fascination is with bloody vanilla ice cream & hot chocolate fudge on anything either! The place had a good feel & was fun but I would definitely order plain if going again, the bar pizzas looked & smelt terrific too – maybe that’s the way to go?

For our last night we went to Tamarind House, recommended as the best spot on the Island I had high hopes & it didn’t disappoint, the setting is a majestic restored colonial era building & the piano player perched in the corner all night also added to the ambience. Michael started with the seafood chowder, another Island specialty which he enjoyed & I chose the chicken & mushroom won tons which were delicious, I finally learnt not to order Cook Islands food which I have developed an intense dislike for! For mains I had some smoked salmon spaghetti & Michael some Island style swordfish, we both left very happy customers for once.

All in all it’s a gorgeous & relaxed place for a holiday, Aitutaki was the highlight & highly recommended but if you go don’t have too high expectations for the food, hope I am not being too critical here, who knows maybe its just my pregnant taste buds after all.

Banana Maple Syrup muffins

This morning I whipped up this batch of muffins from Marie Claire ‘Cooking’ for brekky, will take the leftovers in to work tomorrow for a morning treat for everyone. They were incredibly simple to make, really it was pretty much just measure & stir & the taste was really delicious, and as the bananas were chopped rather than mashed you could really taste their flavour when you bit into them.

Banana Maple Syrup Muffins

2 cups self raising flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup sugar
300g (10 oz) sour cream
1 egg
3 tablespoons maple syrup
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 bananas, chopped

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk together balance of ingredients in another bowl. Add the banana/wet mixture to the dry mix & mix until just combined. Spoon mixture into a greased ½ cup capacity muffin tins and bake in preheated 200c oven for 25-30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Serve with extra maple syrup. Serves 12.

Choc Banana Bread – Australia Day 26th Jan 2006

I had a bunch of very overripe bananas to use up thanks to all of the recent scorchers so the second treat I cooked up was some chocolate banana bread from Bill Grangers ‘Bills Food’, this was amazing, esp when still hot from the oven & the chocolate all oozy, yum. You can see in the photos how high the loaf rose & all of the chunky banana pieces & melty chocolate, mmmm, cant beleive I gave this one away after only 1/2 a piece (only half as I'd already scoffed 2 huge choc chip cookies)

Choc Banana Bread

250g (2 cups) plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
125g (4 ½ oz) unsalted butter, softened
250 g (1 cup) caster sugar
4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
175g (1 cup) good quality dark or milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180c (350f/gas 4). Sift the flour & baking powder into a large bowl. Mix the butter, sugar, bananas, eggs, vanilla extract & chocolate chips in a separate bowl. Add to the dry ingredients & stir to combine, being careful not to overmix.

Pour the batter into a non-stick or lightly greased & floured 19 x 11cm loaf tin & bake for 1 hour 15 minutes or until bread is cooked when tested with a skewer. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 mins before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

News Years Resoltion - Liver Cleansing Diet!

Well after a week & a bit of complete excess which followed from a month of Christmas lunches, dinners, parties & you name its, the pants were feeling a bit tight so I thought it was absolutely neccessary to start the New year off with the Liver Cleansing diet.

I started on 2nd Jan as I first had begin the new year well so went to my mums for dinner & had some lovely peirogi to start with followed by a Roast beef, can you get more comfort food than that, was delicious & nice way to start off 2006, good food, wine & with the family.

Anyway the diet is suppsoed to go for 8 weeks & we will see how I go. There will def be a break on the weekend of 20th Jan as I'm flying up to Brisbane for a girls weekend. On day 4 now & feeling much lighter already & the food is not too bad apart from the fact that I have to cut out all dairy, red meat & of course anything that contains sugar, white flour, etc! Oh well sure it will all taste even better than I remember after depriving myself for a few weeks. The diet has one saving grace, I am still allowed 4 glasses of wine a week, yippee, am really looking forward to Friday night now.

The photo is of some Banana & walnut muffins which I made from the book, they really arent too bad though not good enough to share the recipe thats for sure. Will not bother to share all the gory food I have to eat unless one of the recipes takes me by surpirse so see you back when I am in the real world again all cleansed & ready to destroy all my hard work

Bye for now