Sticky ginger and banana bread

I had wanted to post this in time for Bonfire Night as the warming ginger in this cake seems to make it perfect for eating next to a bonfire, preferably with a mug of mulled wine in the other hand. Even though it's a little late, it's still perfect for perking you up in colder weather.

This started life as a Jamie Oliver recipe, but has since swayed quite a lot off course. Jamie's recipe is here, for my version, I added a couple of bananas I had lying around (they were actually snuggled up to the last of our green tomatoes in the hope that they might turn red) and cut down on the vast quantities of sugar and golden syrup. However, the finished result is still sticky and sweet and full of gingery kick. It's also firm enough to travel well as a little snack for the office, which is always good.


I also wanted to share a neat trick that I discovered recently. If you don't have a cake tester (who does?) then a strand of spaghetti works really well. Instead of huge dents left by testing with a knife, and I usually end up testing a few times, you get a barely discernible hole. Genius!

Ingredients

8 pieces stem ginger
4 tbsp stem ginger syrup
150g butter, softened
100g golden syrup
50g dark muscavado sugar
2 eggs
200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp soft brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Put the stem ginger into a food processor and whizz until it's a paste.
Add the syrup, softened butter, golden syrup and sugar and blend until thick and fluffy.
Add the eggs and blend again until well combined and smooth.
Sift in the flour, baking poweder, ground ginger and cinamon and blend until a thick better forms.
Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin, smooth the mixture with a spatula and sprinkle over the sugar.
Bake in the oven for 50 minutes, or until risend and golden and a cake tester comes out clean.

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Banana, Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

I've taken to freezing bananas whenever there's a stray overripe one lying around. It renders them almost completely useless, as they turn into a sludgy mess when defrosted. However, looks aside, they do make perfect banana bread and that way I can freeze a banana every so often until I have enough in the freezer to bake with.

I came across this recipe while looking up Nigella classic banana bread in How to be a Domestic Goddess. These are ridiculously easy to make and taste as good at they sound. The dried raspberries (or cherries) contrast with the sweet banana muffin and the white chocolate adds a butterscotch touch.



Ingredients

Taken from How to be a Domestic Goddess but changed slightly

125g butter
200g sugar
1tsp vanilla
3 ripe medium bananas
4tbsp yoghurt
2 eggs
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2tsp baking powder
300g flour
40g dried raspberries, cherries
50g white chocolate

• Preheat the oven to 180C and line a muffin tray with cases.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the sugar and vanilla using a fork.
• Add the bananas, mashing them into the mixture as you go.
• Stir in the eggs, yoghurt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
• Finally add the flour, chocolate and raspberries, stir until just combined and divide between the 12 muffins cases.
• Bake for 20mins until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean.

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Banana Bread

Banana bread is possibly one of my favourite cakes, definitely as a sweet treat to perk me up in the afternoon (tea a necessary accompaniment). The key with banana bread is that the bananas need to be really really ripe, almost completely black and ready for the bin, these will make the moistest bread. If you've only one banana that is ripe enough, I've frozen them in the past and it actually works ok, they look disgusting when they defrost, but make good cake.


The cake above is from a recipe featured in the Guardian guide to baking, and the recipe is by Dan Lepard, a bit of a baking legend, he actually has a weekly column every week in the guardian. I find his recipes slightly more complicated and involved than the usual cake recipe, but the cakes themselves are lovely and worth the effort.

This recipe involves cooking the bananas in caramel before mixing into the cake mixture, so you end up with toffee coloured caramel banana bread, delicious.

That said, you can't really beat a classic banana bread. I always use the Nigella version, why would you use anything else? You can always trust a Nigella recipe, this it taken from How to be a Domestic Goddess , although not my favourite Nigella book, anyone who wants to bake should not be without it. Read more...