Thursday, October 11, 2007

Easy Banana Bread

By Michele

1/4 cup butter or shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. yogurt or buttermilk
3 ripe bananas, mashed

Mix shortening or butter to sugar and egg. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix yogurt and bananas. Add dry mixture and banana mixture to shortening mixture. Pour into greased 5 x 9 pan. Bake at 350 degrees centigrade for 1 hour.

Lime Syrup Cake

From Vicki Curtis

250 gm butter, softened

1 tbsp finely grated lime rind

1 cup caster sugar (220 gm)

3 eggs, separated

2 cups (300gm) SR Flour

1 cup (250 ml) buttermilk

Syrup

1/3 cup lime juice

3/4 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C or 160 C for fan forced. Grease ring pan (20 cm I think) and line base with baking paper, sprinkle some flour and shake away excess.

Beat butter, rind and sugar in a small bowl with elec mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks one at a time, until combined.

Transfer mixture to a large bowl, stir in half sifted flour and half the buttermilk, then stir in reamining flour and buttermilk. Stir until smooth.

Beat egg whites in a small bowl until soft peaks form (elec mixer), fold into mixture in two lots. Makes a big batter.

Spread mixture into pan and bake for about one hr. Stand cake in pan for 5 mins before turning onto serving plate. While cake stands make sryup.

Combine all syrup ingredients in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until dissolved, bring to boil and then remove from heat.

Gradually pour the syrup over the hot cake (on serving plate - just pour syrup nice and slow so it absorbs)

Notes - if no buttermilk use yoghurt or skim milk. Can use other citrus fruits. If cooking in a 20cm roundpan then cook for about 1 and a half hrs. Can be made 2 days in advance (but I like it just as it has cooled on day of cooking). Delicious served warm with blueberries and cream or icecream.

Enjoy.