It’s been a while since I last did a baking post, and typically I picked a boiling hot day to get back on the cooking wagon but the results were worth it.
We had a load of bananas past their best so I flicked through my collection of recipe books to see what caught my eye and the result was Vegan Banana Cake from bake-a-boo bakery cookbook (with a few alterations).

You’ll need:

450g sifted self-raising flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

400g golden caster sugar (I used a 50/50 mix of golden and normal as I didn’t have enough)

185ml sunflower oil

450ml water

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

2 large ripe bananas (I used four small)

Dried banana chips to decorate (I didn’t have/use these)

To Make:

Pre-heat oven to 180*c and grease/line two 8inch round cake tins (I used two large loaf tins instead).

Place the flour, baking powder and sugar in a large mixing bowl and stir until blended. Beat in the sunflower oil and water and add the vanilla. Then mash up the bananas and fold those in until well combined.

Divide the mixture between the tins and cook for 45 minutes until golden brown and inserted skewer comes out clean (Mine were done on top after 30 minutes but took a further 30 to cook through due to using loaf tins, I covered in foil for the last 30 minutes to prevent further browning on the top).

I stopped at this point because I made loaf cakes, and the cake is so moist and light that I didn’t feel it needed anything else,
however if you love icing, or have made round cakes there is a recipe for vegan peanut butter icing in the book too, which I’ll post below.

The result? A soft, fluffy, moist cake that isn’t too sweet and goes perfectly with a pot of tea! I donated one to work and it didn’t survive the first hour after lunch apparently!

If you wanted to ice the cake, the recipe is as follows:

Place 500g sifted icing sugar in a large bowl and beat in 65g dairy free margarine (pure free, vitalite…) and 150 smooth peanut butter. Slowly add 50ml of water until you get a smooth icing. Use half to fill the cake, and half to ice the cake (if doing a round one) and leave to set for 30 minutes. Decorate with dried banana chips if using.

Entire recipe is vegan friendly and suitable for those with a dairy or egg allergy!

Enjoy!

Has anyone visited bake-a-boo? It’s on my list of places to go!

Anyone else got any vegan recipes to share, or done any baking lately?

This was a good start to my week off, and the rest of the day was spent doing my work (DONE!) and spending time in the park with a friend and her dog, making the most of the last of the sunshine.

Summer.Is.Over. Boooo.

xxx

Yes, another baking post. There are two reasons for this;
1. Bad news, totally out of the blue has left me somewhat…struggling for inspiration with anything. Twitter followers…just, thank you.

2. It’d be really damn rude of me not to share such a delightfully simple and sinfully delicious recipe.

I present,
Nutella Fudge Brownie Bites


Ingredients:
– 175g Nutella. Buy a 200g jar and you’ll have the perfect amount left for guilt free eating off the spoon.

– 5 tablespoons self raising flour.

– 1 egg.

– A good dash of cinnamon, and some chunks of chocolate/dried fruit/chocolate chips etc.

Method:
Beat together the nutella and the egg until smooth. Add in the flour and mix well…the batter will be sticky but not too hard to work with. Add in anything else you fancy (I used chunks of milk chocolate and liberal amounts of cinnamon).

Spoon in to 12 fairy cake cases (you could also do it as a sheet, as bigger bites, or mini bites but will need to adjust cooking times) and bake at 180*c for around 10 minutes. Cooking time is approximate because it depends on how you like your brownies! I like mine not too gooey, but not too cooked either, so 10 minutes was perfect.

Cool (a little) and eat.

3oz Self Raising Flour
1oz Cocoa powder
4oz Butter
4oz Caster Sugar
2 Large Eggs
As much chocolate as you can get your hands on; broken in to chunks (I used about half a large bar of dark chocolate and half a bag of white chocolate chips)

Mix everything together in a large bowl.
Spread evenly in to a baking tin.
Cook on 180c for around 20 minutes; this may be inaccurate, I can only go by my oven which does as it pleases…basically until a clean knife/skewer inserted in to the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool.

Take in to work and watch everyone become your new best friend.

Happy Weekend

xxx