Cuisine – Spring in to tea parties

At last the sweet smell of spring is in the air. The to-die-for aroma of freesias means one thing to me and one thing only: tea parties in the garden. I love making sweet treats to be enjoyed with a cup of tea out in the sunshine. My most treasured of these sweets is my banana cake. It is such a winner it gets made at just about every birthday party too. The trick to it is over-ripe bananas. As the weather warms up, the amount of time my bananas can survive in the fruit bowl goes down. Like many of us, I am not a fan of devouring them when they are covered in brown spots. Once they hit the browning stage, straight to the freezer they go. Waste not, want not. I highly recommend you use the same technique because it’s these frozen brown bananas that make the cake. I must admit they look rather hideous when they come out and upon thawing their consistency is absolute mush, but they are the perfect baking ingredient. Good bye yucky brown banana, hello delectable banana cake.

Finally, a moist banana cake

Ingredients:
250g softened butter
1½ cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp cherry or vanilla extract, pure or imitation
2 tsp baking soda
½ cup hot milk
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 very ripe thawed bananas, peeled and mashed

Method:
Preheat your oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 23cm-diameter cake tin with baking paper, or if you’d prefer controlled helpings, prepare 12 muffin tins.

Beat your soft butter and sugar until nice and creamy/light yellow. Then beat in your eggs, one at a time. Add your vanilla or cherry essence (cherry is best in my book as it adds a little kick). Gently fold in your mashed bananas.

Dissolve the baking soda in hot milk and add to the main mixture stirring until combined.

Gently sift the flour and baking powder over your wet mixture. Like the addition of the bananas, fold gently into mixture. Do not beat them in as we want to keep the texture of the cake light.

Spoon the finished mixture in to your tin/s. Bake your cake for 45 minutes to one hour.

Muffins should take about 20 minutes. Near the end of cooking time, frequently insert a skewer in to the centre of the cake.  If the skewer comes out clean and the top of the cake is springy to the touch it’s done.

Allow cake to cool and greedily consume.

Thinking this cake would be even better with icing? Try chocolate or lemon. Beat together 50g softened butter and 3 cups of icing sugar. Add 3 tbsp of lemon juice or cocoa powder. Continue beating, adding ½ tbsp of hot water until creamy. Spread over cake. Delish!