The perfect quarantine activity - baking. Assuming you can get flour! It keeps the kids occupied plus you get good quarantine snacks! It also gave me a good excuse to practice some film making. I have so many photos of the twins baking in this spot I decided to switch to video mode and got some clips of them having fun mashing the bananas, breaking eggs and getting flour everywhere! It's so lovely to have some of these times recorded with their voices and the quirky faces they make actually moving. Family films are definitely something I'm getting more excited about (rather than daunted by) and I am looking forward to making more.
My banana cake recipe:
140g butter, softened, plus extra for the tin
140g caster sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
140g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
(Optional) dark chocolate chips - I think these are the perfect addition to the sweet banana cake, add a handful if you like, just add them into the final mix.
Method:
Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin. (I doubled the quantity this time as we had 4 dodgy bananas!)
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then slowly add the beaten eggs with a little of the flour. Fold in the remaining flour, baking powder and mashed bananas. Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 mins until a skewer comes out clean. We did a double batch and I made some mini loaves too.
I ended up baking mine for a lot longer, it just wasn't cooked every time I checked the middle so I put a tin foil "hat" over the top to prevent it from burning which seemed to work as it was in for an hour in the end! Maybe I put more than half the quantity in the main tin.
Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then remove to a wire rack.
You can eat it as is or add my favourite icing which I believe makes every cake better:
My go to recipe for cream cheese icing is Nigella Lawson's original recipe from her epic Chocolate Guinness Cake - my all time favourite, although I use the cheat's method to make it!
300 grams cream cheese (I use Philadelphia, don't use the reduced fat stuff, it's too watery)
150 grams icing sugar
2 teaspoons cornflour
125 millilitres double cream
Method:
Measure the icing sugar into a food processor and whizz it up to remove any lumps (much less messy than sieving the powdered sugar!), add the cream cheese and cornflour and whizz again until combined, then add the double cream while it's on, this thickens it up and makes it utterly delicious!!! Easy peasy and soooooo good!
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