Banana cake

For our picnic at Araluen this weekend I made my favourite banana cake recipe. It is from the Australian Women's Weekly Cafe Cakes.

125g butter
3/4 cup (150g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon mixed spice
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 cup mashed banana
1/2 cup (120g) sour cream
1/4 cup (60mL) milk

Preheat oven to moderate. Grease 15cm x 25cm loaf pan, line base with baking paper.

Beat butter, sugar and spice in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time until combined. Transfer mixture to a large bowl, stir in sifted flour and soda with remaining ingredients.

Spread mixture into prepared pan; bake in moderate oven about 50 minutes. Stand cake in pan 5 minutes; turn onto wire rack to cool.


Notes
- I used wholemeal self raising flour for a bit of extra texture.
- I cooked the cake for 45 minutes. It is usually a very moist cake, this time around it was quite dry. I believe it was because I used frozen bananas, and had poured the liquid off once they had defrosted before using them.
- The recipe includes passionfruit icing. For our picnic I thought it would be nice - and easier! - to serve the cake with mascarpone cheese. I had visions of serving up a warm cake, however it was ready over an hour before we left, and cooking on the barbecues took forever...

Picnic at Araluen

This ANZAC Day we had a picnic with friends at Araluen. The coordination was simply for everyone to bring a salad; everything else was to be own supply. Amongst us we had enough food for a small army, and we managed to sort out plates, cutlery and cups for everyone! About all may have been in short supply was beer... the boys commented that they had not brought enough beer with them to take into account the slowness of the barbecue.

Noone had mentioned dessert... so of course all three ladies made something sweet! KC made the traditional ANZAC biscuits and L made a Jaffa cake. I chipped in with banana cake. We definitely did not go hungry.

Dessert spread.

The loaded barbecue.

There were many chilli plants around, full of fruit. C tasted a few of the chillis. He said that he was trying to compare the heat of the fruit.


More photos here.

Notes to self (barbecue/picnic etiquette)
- Always take extra cutlery and plates, just in case.
- Make sure that you have enough beer!
- Pack a hat and sunscreen.
- Consider BYO barbecue if the venue allows it. You might get your food quicker!

AWW High Tea

Oh wow, two of my favourite things combined in one book! An Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook, on the topic of High Tea!

I am going to have to go book shopping!

Update: I bought a copy today for myself and also a copy for my sister. It has several sections devoted to different high tea goodies, including finer sandwiches, pastries, scones and macarons. So many inspiring recipes, I feel like organising a party.


Image here

Tagine - new territory!

My future sister-in-law gave us a tagine and cook book as an engagement present. We have still to give using the tagine a go! I was a little worried after reading the cook book that she gave us, it warns that some tagines are good for using directly on the stove top, whereas others are purely decorative and you use them only to serve!

Online research has only confused me, as some web sites that I have read also say that you should use a heat diffuser. I am a little worried about using it as I would hate for it to crack at the first go. Unfortunately there were no instructions in the box it came in...

I have also learnt that you should season a tagine before you use it; here are some instructions.

Lime tart

We currently have a few limes on our tree. Mum and Dad gave it to me for my birthday three years ago and it has finally given us fruit. On our quest for recipes using limes we were lent the "marie claire flavours" book (by Donna Hay!) by another neighbour.

This tart was made with fresh limes from our tree and eggs from our neighbour's chickens.

Pastry
2 cups plain flour
155g butter, chopped
iced water
Lime Tart
1 cup caster sugar
4 eggs
1 cup cream
1 cup lime juice

Place the flour and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture has formed fine crumbs. Add enough iced water to form a soft dough. Remove the dough from the food processor and knead lightly. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling to prevent shrinkage when baked.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Roll out the pastry to fit a 25cm removable base tart tin. Prick a few holes in the pastry and line with non-stick baking paper. Fill with rice or baking weights and paper and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking weights and paper and bake for a further 10 minutes. This process is called blind baking and will keep the tart shell crisp when filled with a wet filling.

To make the lime filling, place the sugar, eggs, cream and lime juice in a bowl and mix to combine. Skim the top of the mixture to remove any bubbles or foam. Pour into the tart shell, reduce the oven to 160C and bake for 20-25 minutes of until the filling is just set. Refrigerate the tart until firm.
To serve, cut into wedges and serve with thick cream or ice cream.


Notes
- The filling was nice and tart and tasty. There just was not enough of it in ratio to the pastry!
- The amount of pastry in the recipe is too much for the tin. The tart recipe refers to the generic short crust pastry recipe in the book. The quantity of 2 cups of flour seemed high, however I was cooking in a new tin (28cm) and thought that I might need the extra. Once I rolled it out it seemed quite thick, but I perservered. Sadly, the pastry let the filling down, and I will use a different recipe next time.
- I had about twice as much filling as I could fit in the tin, so I used circles cut out of puff pastry. I baked them at the same temperature as the large tart, and the puff pastry did not cook properly. I should have puffed it up first too! I will know for next time.
- If I had a jug big enough for the filling I would mix it up in the jug. I would leave the tart shell on the oven shelf and pour the filling directly in. My oven shelves pull out so I am able to do that.

Plat Belge

Today C and I had a lunch date. He came into the city to do some shopping and we had lunch at the Belgian Beer Cafe. I was very tempted by the mussels, as a reference to when E and I travelled through Belgium and ate Moules et Frites. I settled on the Plat Belge, or tasting plate.

It was a curious mixture, mini beef wellington, pumpkin dip with toasted turkish bread, prawn cocktail, pork belly with apple and (I think) stuffed chicken. The beef wellington was tasty, and we both enjoyed the zing of the dip! The prawn salad was nice and fresh and tasty too and I am a sucker for pork belly.

There was definitely enough food for me for lunch; I struggled but managed to finish my meal!

A flood of potatoes

One of our neighbours owns a chicken farm... and they laid these potatoes!

No, just kidding. One of her chicken farm neighbours has given her lots of fresh potatoes. We are lucky that she has shared some with us, we have been given two bags of them and you can see the excess amount we have to cook with. For just the two of us we normally only buy six potatoes at a time so it will be a challenge to come up with potato recipes. So far we have made a potato bake and vegetable soup.

I am not a big potato fan so it will be a challenge!