Banana Cake

I guess you've all realised by now that I seem to be getting a bit carried away with baking! Still nothing complex or worthy of the Great British Bake Off, but definitely more than I've attempted before.

This week I thought I'd make my brother's favourite cake as he has been working really hard recently and totally deserved a treat. I found this simple banana cake recipe on Allrecipes and gave it a go.

It's such a simple recipe I couldn't really believe it. I made it in a 2lb silicone loaf mould and as with the lemon drizzle cake that I made last week it needed longer in the oven (almost 15 minutes more than recommended). I don't know if this is because of my oven or how much it has to do with the mould. My verdict... I don't think I've ever even tried a piece of banana cake before but this one was awesome (even if I do say so myself!). I'll definitely make it again!

What's your favourite recipe or cake? Please comment and post a link to your recipe if you've shared it online :)

Baking Experiment #2!

Flush with success baking a Christmas cake I got all giddy and decided to try and make one of my favourite cakes; lemon drizzle cake.

Now I said the other day that I'm no expert in the kitchen but if I never try these things I'll never know! I had a quick search through t'interweb for a recipe. Firstly there is the original master of baking Mary Berry and her recipe . However I'd heard a rumour (potentially on the Great British Bake Off) that Paul Hollywood's was better but his recipe isn't readily available online. So for some random reason I opted for a Nigella recipe. Love her or hate her, everyone knows that Nigella makes sexy cakes! Plus I could find a copy of her recipe online with some helpful photos to give me some guidance!

And... tadaaaa!!....

My verdict: I absolutely loved making this. It didn't need a load of ingredients and was pretty fast and simple to make. I did it in one of those silicone squishy baking moulds and as a result had to bake it for just a few minutes more than the recipe called for. All in all it seems to have been another success so I'm feeling pretty proud of myself!

Mmm cake.....

Now you may or may not know that I love to cook. I'm not saying that I'm a pro or anything, but I think I do pretty well and I really enjoy it. Something I don't do a lot of though is baking, however it's got to that time of year ...*drum roll please*.....Christmas cake and Christmas pudding time!

There are two reasons that they have to be done now: Firstly, the Christmas pudding needs a bit of time to mature and the Christmas cake needs time to be fed plenty of booze (very important)! Secondly, building work begins on our house in a few days time and we won't have a kitchen (eek!)

So I thought I'd share some photos with you. The cake recipe was given to my mum by a friend (I think it was her family recipe) and we've used it ever since I was little. I'm a sucker for technology and having all my recipes on my iPad but there is something special about getting out that hand written recipe with all the marks on it from when we had to check each ingredient off when I was young.

The start of the process (above) and the end product (below). It has cracked a little but I'm hoping these might reduce in size as it cools (this photo was taken when it just came out of the oven)

I made Christmas pudding for the first time last year but it turned out SO well that I plan to make it one of my traditions and make one every year. The recipe I used was this great one by Delia Smith . This year I have made a few alterations regarding the type of fruit I've added though the recipe is amazing just as it is and is really simple to do.

It's currently resting overnight and I'll pack it in a bowl and steam it for 6 hours tomorrow. Then I'll just keep it in a cool place until it's time to steam it again on Christmas day.

Do you make Christmas cakes and/or puddings? Please feel free to comment and share some of your favourite combinations and traditions :)