A Trio of Banana Cakes - one for today, one for the week and dairy free

These days I have a repertoire of banana cake recipes. The first one is the old faithful, my Mums recipe cut from the pages a huge old recipe book, the Australian and New Zealand Recipe Encyclopedia or something like that. I can remember making it with her countless times as a child, I loved adding the bicarb to the warm milk and seeing it fizz. It is a great cake, delicious fresh for the first day or two then its great toasted with butter. If I know we are not going to get through the whole cake, I slice and freeze it, then I can just pop the frozen slices in the toaster for a quick snack.

The second recipe I discovered after I started this blogging thing on Paula's lovely blog Pod and Three Peas. I have mentioned her blog here before and cook from it regularly, she shares so many great recipes. So the next cake is hers, similar to my first one, but with the addition of sour cream. I have come to love sour cream cakes, they seem to stay fresh for ages. So this cake is a good one when you want it to last the week for lunch boxes and morning munchies. On the topic of sour cream cakes, Nigella has a good chocolate one and I love the lemon one also from Pod and Three Peas. I also want to try Paula's new version of a banana sour cream cake with yummy sounding brown butter icing.

 

Finally the latest addition to my repertoire is my own innovation, the dairy free banana cake. I created this so that my youngest daughter, who is dairy intolerant, could enjoy banana cake. At almost two, she has recently learnt the word "cake" and can't be left out of anything! This cake has the benefit of being a quick mix cake, I just mix it up by hand in one bowl.  Its a lovely moist cake, I enjoy it and don't miss the dairy.

 

Old Faithful Banana Cake Recipe

125g butter

3/4 C caster sugar

2 eggs

2 -3 bananas, preferable overripe

1/4 C milk, warm

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 C plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

 

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a loaf tin or deep 20 cm round tin.

Cream butter and sugar until light, white and fluffy. Add beaten eggs, gradually, beating well after each addition.

Mash the bananas, I put them on a plate and use a fork, and beat into cake mixture. Combine warm milk and bicarb, mix into cake mixture. Sift flour, baking powder and salt (if you can be bothered, I usually can't) and fold into mixture. Spread into prepared tin.

Bake at 180C for 40 - 45 minutes. Leave plain or spread with icing, see recipes below.

 

Pod and Three Peas Banana and Sour Cream Cake

find the original post here

115g butter

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup sour cream

1 tbsp milk

2-3 ripe mashed bananas

 

Preheat oven to 180.  Grease and line loaf tin.  

Cream butter and brown sugar till pale, add eggs one at a time and combine.  Sift in flour and baking soda, stir, add in banana, sour cream and milk stir till combined.  Pop in oven for 50 - 60 minutes til skewer comes out clean. Cool and ice.

 

Dairy Free Banana Cake

1/2 C oil, I use rice bran oil and I imagine coconut oil would work too

3/4 C caster sugar

2 eggs

2 -3 bananas, preferable overripe

1 1/2 C plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch salt

 

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a loaf tin or deep 20 cm round tin.

In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar and eggs until combined.

Mash the bananas, I put them on a plate and use a fork, and mix in. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt (if you can be bothered, I usually can't) and fold into mixture. Spread into prepared tin.

Bake at 180C for 40 - 45 minutes. Leave plain or spread with icing, see recipes below.

 

Icings

These are my two favourites. I also want to try the brown butter icing here.

Lemon Icing

1 C icing sugar

1 lemon, juiced

 

Place the icing sugar in a medium bowl and add sufficient juice to make a thick paste. Spread on the cake.

 

Cream Cheese Icing

250g cream cheese, at room temp

80g butter, at room temp

1 C icing sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

 

Beat the cream cheese with an electric beater for a few minutes until smooth. Add butter and beat again until smooth. Add icing sugar and lemon juice and mix fro 30 seconds until combined.

Spread over cake.

Date, Hazelnut and Currant Christmas Cake

I found this recipe for an Italian Christmas Cake in Good Living in the Sydney Morning Herald two Christmas' ago. Dates and currants are probably my favourite dried fruit so I had to try it. The cake has no spices in it but the dried fruits and alcohol still make it smell like Christmas Cake. The cake is delicious and moist and keeps for weeks, I am still enjoying this years with my cup of tea!

Date, Hazelnut and Currant Christmas Cake

I have made this in a regular round cake tin with a hole and a bundt tin, both work well. I have also made it in a regular tin but the middle sank, it is a very moist cake so hard to cook through. But whatever you do don't overcook it!

85g pitted dates, roughly chopped

50g currants

100g roasted hazelnuts, roughly blitzed in the food processor

50ml marsala (plus about 1/4 cup extra)

165g soft unsalted butter

150g castor sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

200g plain flour

1/2 C almond meal

4 tsp baking

Preheat oven to 170C.

Place dates, currants and hazelnuts in a bowl and pour in the marsala. Toss to combine and let stand for a few hours, preferably overnight. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until light and creamy. Gradually add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Combine flour, almond meal and baking powder in another bowl and stir with a whisk to remove any lumps in the flour. Fold flour mixture into butter mixture and then stir through fruit with all the juices.

Mix well to combine. Spoon into cake tin and bake for 1 hour or until cooked. (If you find that the centre is still undercooked, cover the top with foil and continue baking until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.) Spoon/brush extra marsala over hot cake and allow to cool in tin. Keeps for 2-3 weeks in an airtight container and improves with age!

Willa - my new baby girl is here!

I gave birth to a beautiful little girl last Monday. We named her Willa Beth. Her sisters completely adore her, it is lovely seeing our three girls together.

Willa with gifts from her sisters

I don't think I will get much time for cooking or blogging in the next few weeks... Typing this one handed is rather slow.  But I am about to try and make a Blueberry and Apple Cake before the next breastfeed. I need cake to snack on!

I am using this recipe from Cuisine.com.au for Blueberry Bake but am going to add apple as well. Like all my favourite cake recipes at the moment it has sour cream in it. Will let you know how it goes.

Update: The cake was a success. I iced it with a maple syrup butter icing but next time might just stick with the lemon. I used 1 apple and 1 C blueberries, I think you could increase this to 2 apples, mixing one through the cake mixture and sprinkling one on top with the berries.