Eggless Banana cake

My children refuse to eat bananas with spots – yes, that is what they call over ripe bananas.  Even though these bananas with spots are supposed to be sweeter and healthier than the non-spotted ones, I cannot get them to eat it.  So more often than not, the cakes I prepare are banana cakes.  The bananas can be all black and I can still use them in the cake and then I have no complaints from them.  So I keep looking for banana cake recipes and experiment with them – sometimes substitute part of the flour with desiccated coconut or then substitute nuts with sultanas.  Either ways, children love cake and especially warm banana cake served with vanilla ice cream.

I came across this recipe that has not used eggs in the cake and should be perfect for those vegetarians who do not eat eggs.  I was apprehensive as to whether the cake would be moist and spongy enough without the eggs, but there was no difference in texture.  I also made the same cake and substituted half the flour for wheat germ, and it was still as good. 

Preparation Time: 55 minutes

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

350 grams condensed milk

100 grams plain yoghurt

100 grams unsalted butter

250 grams flour

1teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla powder

4 ripe bananas, mashed with a fork

1 tablespoon sunflower seeds, lightly toasted

A pinch of salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Beat butter and condensed milk together till creamy.  
2. Add yoghurt and beat till mixed well. 
3. Sieve together the flour, baking powder and baking soda and keep aside.  
4. Fold the dry ingredients gradually into the mixture and mix well. 
5. Add the bananas and vanilla and mix lightly. 
6. Grease and flour bread tin and put the cake mix into it. 
7. Sprinkle with the sunflower seeds and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes or till a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool on a rack before slicing and serving.

Date Apple Cake

If you see a 12-year old driving a car on the highway, what would your reaction be?  How would the authorities respond to this act if bylaw a person is allowed to drive only when he is 18 years after holding a valid drivers’ license?  Knowing that this 12-year old is endangering his life and those of others on the road, as a responsible citizen, what should you do?  I am guessing you would each in the same way like me – alert authorities, the responsible guardian/parents of the child and if possible, perhaps even ground the child and vehicle till authorities arrive and take charge.

The legal age to sell cigarettes to a person in Belgium is 16 years old.  How many of us have seen this law broken time and again – children below 16 years come into possession of tobacco and openly flaunt disobedience of the law.  At bus stops and in front of schools you must have often seen children as young as 10 years puffing smoke.  As responsible citizens, how do we have to react to these circumstances?  Ignore the law being broken?

Preparation Time: 55 minutes

Serves: 8

Ingredients:

½ cup white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup shortening

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon dried ginger powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 cup dates, deseeded and chopped

Method:

1. Cream sugar and shortening; dissolve soda in apple sauce and add to the sugar mixture.  
2. Sift the ginger, cinnamon powder, flour and salt.  Add to the wet mixture and mix well.  
3. Now stir in the dates.  
4. Grease a loaf pan and pour the batter into it.  
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for about 40 minutes or till a toothpick comes out clean when pricked in the middle of the cake.

 

Blueberry Muffins

The other day I was at a garage sale and came across two books on the life of Anne Frank.  I have seen the films on her life, read articles and even stood in a line for 3 hours to visit the attic where she spend the last years of her life in hiding before being caught and sent to the concentration camps.  But now I have two books – one is her diary and the other is the tale of 7 women who knew her and met or interacted with her in the last 7 months of her life at the concentration camps.

I started reading the latter book – the stories of the 7 women and how they came to be in touch with Anne Frank.  I did not get too far in the book and kept playing the same thing in my mind – what drives someone to annihilate his own species?  And then you think that is in the past – a past humanity should be ashamed of.  But then you see people like Mladic in our very present standing trial for the same type of crimes committed during the World War II but in a more recent past.  And then you think, it is the past – a more recent past, but nonetheless still the past. 

Then you see what is happening in the Congo, in Libya, in Yemen and in Yemen and so many other countries – and now you say, this is not the past…this is now…this is today.  I live in this “today” which is laying down the foundation for a “tomorrow” where my children would be living.  This is a legacy I am leaving for my children which is not right – it needs to change.  Change which does not mean destroying the bad but building good of what exists.  I visualize it as a renovation of an old building full of features and history – very difficult but what an end result when you have put all the good into it. 

Preparation Time: 40 minutes

Serves: 12 muffins

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons melted butter, plus some for greasing the muffin tin

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup granulated white sugar

½ teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

½ teaspoon lemon zest

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.  Grease a standard 12-compartment muffin tin.   
2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl and keep aside.   
3. Beat together the egg, milk and butter.   
4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it except the blue berries.  Using a large spoon or rubber spatula, combine the ingredients swiftly, stirring and folding rather than beating.  Stop as soon as all the dry ingredients are moistened.  The batter should be lumpy, not smooth, and thick but quite moist.  
5. Add the blueberries and mix till they are coated with the dough.   
6. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling them about two-thirds full.  Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until the muffins are nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the centre of one of them comes out clean.  
7. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before taking them out of the tin.  Serve warm.

Pear Cake

 

 I have to make it a habit to carry my camera everywhere I go.  You never know what you come across and you would have liked to capture it on film (or now on an SD card).  I have one of those little camera phones, but it never beats what a real camera could do. 

For many, they see the world through the lens of a camera.  Some time back I had the opportunity to meet a semi-professional photographer.  While getting talking, he mentioned that he feels compelled to capture almost anything he sees.  He gave me a good example – he said had he to see a house on fire and people needing to be saved, his first priority would be to capture the shots with his camera and then only try to save the people.  But then again, pictures speak what a 1000 words could never describe.  The powerful pictures coming out of Vietnam or Iraq during the war stirred so many emotions. 

I am no pro at taking pictures.  Hell…I am not even a semi-pro.  I just like to capture moments with the family, landscape and of course my food.  Not only my food, even food others cook and I think is good enough to be worked upon or experimented with.  For example, yesterday I was at a restaurant and ordered some baked mussels in a pumpkin sauce.  The mussels were minimal – about five to be exact.  The sauce was good, but too “pumpkin” which then gave a sweetish taste.  And the color – let us say I would serve this dish only at Halloween.  Now if I had my camera with me, you would have understood exactly what I meant.  But I do plan to work a bit on this dish sometime in the future and add my own stamp to it.  It is a good start point, but I would have increased the mussels, perhaps added some other veggies to the pumpkin for a better texture and taste and then maybe even some herbs and garlic. 

Preparation Time:  1 hour 30 minutes

Serves 6

Ingredients:

4 cups peeled, cored and chopped pears

2 cups white sugar

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

4 egg whites

2/3 cup corn oil

Vanilla essence

2 tablespoons raisins

1 tablespoon almonds, chopped

1 cup chopped pecans

1 tablespoon chocolate chips

Method:

1. Combine the pears and the sugar and let stand for one hour.    
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Spray a 10 inch bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray. 
3. Slightly beat the egg whites and combine them with the oil, chopped pecans and pear mixture.
4. Stir the flour, salt, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. 
5. Stir in the pear mixture. Pour batter into the prepared bundt pan. 
6. Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 1 hour and 10 minutes.  
7. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

Instant Semolina Cake

My backyard in the gloomy weather

Today is another grim day outside - cold and grey with chances of rain.  To keep warm, the best thing would be to either snuggle in front of the fireplace with the laptop and spend my time browsing the net or reading a book or then forcing myself to go in to the kitchen and prepare some surprise for my little girl.  This morning before she left for school she gave me a call to remind me that Tuesdays are her most tiring days and she likes it when there is something ready for her to munch when she gets home at 4 in the evening.  

I have tried different types of cake, but never one with semolina.  I would think it would crumble rather than stay together so I would be interested in finding out how this cake turns out.  The bright side is whatever I make and label cake, wars are fought in my house over it.  My husband and son are cake lovers and would literally be at each others throats for cake.  The carrot cake I made yesterday was preserved and hidden in an unknown container and location by my husband so no one gets to it before he comes home this evening.  So maybe having another cake at home would not be so bad knowing that the demand is so high.  Besides anything with the word "instant" is more than welcome in today's busy world.

All ingredients mixed

Preparation Time: 25 minutes

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup semolina, fine

1 cup half-fat milk

½ cup unsalted butter

½ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs, beaten

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients well together to form a smooth batter without lumps.  
2. Pour into a greased and floured cake tin and bake at 180 degrees C for 20 minutes.  
3. Cool and remove from tin.  A cake cannot get more instant than this.

Tip:  I use baking paper to line the baking pans so when the cake is ready and cool, I just lift the whole thing with the baking paper and cut on it and the baking pan is as clean as ever.

Carrot Cake

I took half a day off today so that I could be home and monitor my son while he prepares for his exams.  You know how teens can be - zero focus if they are not monitored and distracted by the slightest thing.  And besides I still have 8 days left of holidays to be taken by the end of this year - so I may as well make use of it now.  So I got us both sandwiches from the cafeteria at work.  We ate while watching TV and then he got to his studies and I thought "hhmmm I have still carrots left...let me find something to make".  So I browsed through the papers and found this carrot cake recipe just below the carrot cookies recipe I made yesterday.  So voilà, with nothing else to do on a cold Monday afternoon, I set to baking a carrot cake.

Separated Egg yolk & whites

While preparing the cake, I set up some good old music I had from the film of the '70s, "Love Story".  The music of this film is timeless.  I received the book from my husband when he was courting me and I remember completing the whole book in a night and crying so much after finishing it.  Then later on I saw the film and loved it so much too.  This is one of the few films where the film is made like the book because I am one of those who never likes a film when it is made based on a book. A funny saying I once read sums it nicely - never judge a book by its film.  

Here is the link I found on youtube of the "Love Story" music I am so in love with:

Egg whites beaten stiff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K1TI21NS7c&feature=related

Preparation Time:  1 hour
Serves 8 pieces

Ingredients:

1 cup finely grated carrots

2 eggs

Butter & Sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup unsalted butter

¾ cup half-fat milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 ¾ cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon lime juice

½ teaspoon salt

Method:

1. Cream the butter and sugar.  
2. Separate the egg yolks and white.  
3. Add the yolks to the butter-sugar mixture along with the vanilla and lime juice and beat well.  
4. Combine the flour and baking powder.
5. Mix the flour into the butter-egg mixture alternating with the milk.  
6. Now gradually stir in the finely grated carrot.  
7. Beat egg whites with salt till stiff.  
8. Fold the egg whites in lightly into the batter.  
9. Pour into a greased pan and bake in a moderate over (180 degrees C) for 30 – 35 minutes.  This cake is best served warm.