Nigella's Banana Bread

It's been a while since I last baked with bananas. You must be thinking, she is mad. She always bakes with bananas. Haha!! You have a point there. I think the moistness of the bananas always add to the baked product. This time, I've decided to bake a nice cake for Chinese New Year. And who else to turn to except for the trusted Nigella Lawson? Her recipes are easy and foolproof. You literally can't go bake wrong with her recipes.

This recipe is from Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess. As I wanted it to be purely a banana cake without any added ingredients, I eliminated alot of the ingredients Nigella added. Feel free to add them if you so wish.

Ingredients:

100 grams sultanas

75 ml dark rum (or Bourbon)

175 grams plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

½ teaspoon salt

125 grams unsalted butter (melted)

150 grams caster sugar

2 large eggs

4 small very ripe bananas (mashed)

60 grams chopped walnuts

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

1. Put the sultanas and rum or bourbon in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. Remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the sultanas have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.
3. Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3/325ºF 160ºC and get started on the rest. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a medium-sized bowl and, using your hands or a wooden spoon, combine well.
4. In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts, drained sultanas and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit.
5. Scrape into a loaf tin (23 x 13 x 7cm / 9 x 5 x 3 inches) and bake in the middle of the oven for 1-1¼ hours. When it's ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish. Leave in the tin on a rack to cool, and eat thickly or thinly sliced, as you prefer.

I'm submitting this post to Cook and Celebrate: CNY 2015 organised by Yen from Eat your heart out, Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids. 

I'm also submitting this post to Best Recipes For Everyone Jan & Feb 2015 hosted by Fion of Xuanhom's Mom and co-host Victoria Bakes.

I'm also submitting this post to My Treasured Recipes #5 - Chinese New Year Goodies (Jan/Feb 2015) hosted by Miss B of Everybody eats well in Flanders and co-hosted by Charmaine of Mimi Bakery House.

                                          

Marbled butter cookies

Oh no!!! Chinese New Year is just next week? No, you mean this coming week?? Where has all the time gone? I have yet to bake this, that and that. With so little time left, I realised I need to make a strategic decision. That is to bake one more last cookie for Chinese New Year. Haha!!

Then I asked the sister if she wants to eat butter cookies. She said yes please even if she's on a diet. So you probably have an idea how good these cookies are. 

This time, I've decided to make a slight twist to these cookies after seeing some inspiration. The butter cookie recipe is not something new I've baked. You can see my earlier recipe from here.

However, this time, I've decided to make the butter cookies marbled with addition of some cocoa. Oohh I love it when cocoa is added. Suddenly I thought of oreo cookies. Ok that would be another post sometime later this year :) Yes, I'll definitely be making them for sure so stay tuned ;)

Let's focus on our marbled butter cookies.

This time, I've made the batter in two batches. One batch which is the usual butter cookie batter. The other batch is one where I sifted 20g cocoa powder together with the potato starch and plain flour. 

Take note that this cookie batter is really quite soft. I think some people would roll it up with plastic wrap and then let it firm up in the fridge for sometime before baking. My preference is to immediately bake the cookie to get that melt in the mouth texture.

Here's the trick for marbled cookies. I used 1/2 tsp butter cookie batter and 1/2 tsp cocoa cookie batter and combine them together to form a cookie each. You can use any kind of combinations to create different marbled looks as long as the proportion is even so that your cookie would be 1 tbsp each to ensure even baking throughout.

Amidst the baking, I dropped several cookies on the floor in my haste. Literally, the floor were visibly butter crumbles. This is definitely evidence of a melt-in-the-mouth texture even without tasting. Haha!!

Have fun with different marbled looks :) Psst, this is the time to utilise child labour if you have any on hand :P

I'm submitting this post to Cook and Celebrate: CNY 2015 organised by Yen from Eat your heart out, Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids. 

I'm also submitting this post to Best Recipes For Everyone Jan & Feb 2015 hosted by Fion of Xuanhom's Mom and co-host Victoria Bakes.

I'm also submitting this post to My Treasured Recipes #5 - Chinese New Year Goodies (Jan/Feb 2015) hosted by Miss B of Everybody eats well in Flanders and co-hosted by Charmaine of Mimi Bakery House.

I'm submitting this to Little Thumbs Up - February 2015 organized by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of my little favourite DIY and Grace of Life can be Simple.

                                   

Melt-in-the-mouth peanut butter cookies

For the past 1-2 weeks, I have been seeing posts in the facebook where people have already started to do massive baking for the Lunar Chinese New Year. I thought it's a tad too early for that. And now, I'm beginning to panick since it's already the 1st week of February 2015 and nothing is being done except for trying to clear up the house to start on a clean slate. Haha!! of course, cleaning the house is something done but for me, nothing baked for Chinese New Year would be deemed as nothing is done :P

I happen to stumble upon some posts of peanut butter cookies and then Mr G said, I like peanut butter cookies. Immediately, I showed him the YUCK face. As you can see, I'm not a fan of peanut butter or peanut for that fact. But for Mr G, I'll attempt these cookies just to see if it's as good as it seems. I was pretty much intrigued because this recipe uses peanut butter instead of using peanut powder. See my modifications in blue.

Ingredients:

180g peanut butter (creamy without any peanut crunch)

50g peanut oil (I used extra 20g peanut oil**)

85g icing sugar

250g plain flour (I used cake flour and don't seem to see a difference in this)

1 egg yolk + 1 tsp water (beaten together)

Method:

1. Whisk peanut butter, 50g peanut oil and icing sugar together till it all combines together.
2. Sift flour into mixture 1 and knead to the consistency of soft dough. At this point of kneading, if you still see bits of loose flour that cannot gel with the dough, add about 10g to 20g peanut oil. I would suggest to add this slowly as you knead so that you can gauge and not overpour the oil and make a greasy dough.
3. In order to get equally shaped cookies, use small ice-cream scoop or even measuring spoon sized of 1 tbsp (levelled). Lightly roll the rough into a ball and place on the baking sheet. Use your fingers to flatten the top of the cookie and place a half peanut on top of the cookie for decorative purposes. Brush the cookies with beaten egg wash.
4. Bake in preheated oven at 150 deg C for about 14 to 15 minutes (depending on your oven temperature).

As a non-peanut lover, I had to try the cookie I made for taste and to ensure that I don't poison my tester(s) give my testers sub-standard cookies that I won't eat. After a bite of the cookie, I must say that I really like this melt-in-the-mouth cookie. It's unlike the usual peanut butter cookie I've tasted before. I would definitely make this over and over again for sure.

I'm submitting this post to Cook and Celebrate: CNY 2015 organised by Yen from Eat your heart out, Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids. 

I'm also submitting this post to Best Recipes For Everyone Jan & Feb 2015 hosted by Fion of Xuanhom's Mom and co-host Victoria Bakes.

I'm also submitting this post to My Treasured Recipes #5 - Chinese New Year Goodies (Jan/Feb 2015) hosted by Miss B of Everybody eats well in Flanders and co-hosted by Charmaine of Mimi Bakery House.