Banana and pecan bread

At one point or another we will all have bananas lurking in the fruit bowl that have gone black. This recipe is a great way of using those up, don't throw them away as they are packed full of flavour. This cake will keep in an airtight container for up to a week. 

100g wholemeal flour
130g self raising flour
80ml neutral oil or 80g melted salted butter if you prefer
2 over ripe bananas
5g baking soda
90g caster sugar
2 eggs room temperature beaten
80g pecan nuts roughly chopped

In a bowl place the flours, salt, baking powder and soda and mix well
Mash up the bananas in another bowl and stir in the eggs, oil (or butter) and sugar
Mix together the wet and dry ingredients 
To finish add the pecan nuts and stir through
Place in a greased or non stick 500g loaf tin
Bake for 45 minutes at 180c (fan), 190c (normal) oven or until a skewer comes out clean

Tastes of home part 8 - Porter cake

Porter cake is not very well known outside of Ireland but it is a recipe that uses something that Ireland is well known for exporting globally - Guinness! You can however use other types of porter if Guinness isn't easily accessible.

When my mother used to make this, naturally she had to buy some Guinness. These days you'll pop to the shops and buy a can or bottle, back then (remember, small village west of Ireland about 30 or so years ago) we didn't have off licences in our village and the local shops didn't sell alcohol at the time. So I would be dispatched to the pub (I was well underage) to buy a pint of Guinness for my mother. 
Ok, you're probably thinking this is strange, but my parents were both teetotal (at the time) and the pub in question was owned by our next door neighbour. So I would go to the pub, order a pint without any questions being asked, and bring to back to the house, being careful not to spill it. 

Without further ado here is my version of Porter Cake

150g butter

150g soft brown sugar

300g plain flour

2 eggs (room temperature)

1 tsp baking powder

200ml guinness (room temperature)

1 teaspoon mixed spice

If you like you can add, 50g sultanas, 50g candied peel and 50g raisins to the cake. It was traditionally made with fruit in it, but as you may have guessed by now, I have an aversion to dried fruit in anything. 

Pre-heat the oven to 150c (fan), 160c (normal)

In one bowl, cream the butter and sugar until it becomes pale and fluffy 
Add the eggs one by one and stir though until combined

Sieve the flour, baking powder and mixed spice into the bowl with the creamed sugar and butter mix

Mix through and start to add the Guinness stirring gently as you do

At this stage, you can add the dried fruit and stir through

Pour into a lined springform baking tin, greased Bundt tin or a lined 500g loaf tin

Cook in the oven for 1 hour 

As it needs to cook for so long you may want to cover the top with baking parchment for the first 30 mins to prevent it from burning

Remove the parchment after 30 mins so that the cake will brown evenly.

Tastes of Home part four - Treacle Cake

Sometimes a memory of something you ate as a child will crop up and you'll develop a craving. Then you realise that the ingredients to make said craving are not widely available in the country that you have moved to. I'm not your normal expat, I don't feel the need to make regular trips back to Ireland or the UK to source ingredients or food stuffs and will often make do with what is available here in the Netherlands. 

I do have a motto if you can't get it try making it yourself.

I don't have a sweet tooth but I had cravings for this cake my mother used to make as a child. She always made two versions, one with raisins (aka dead flies, which I don't like) and one without so I could eat it, the cake I'm taking about is Treacle Cake. 
Now I have searched high and low for treacle here in the Netherlands and haven't really seen it in the shops, so it was off to The Hague to dear old Marks and Spencers to see if they stocked it, happily they did.

The next thing was to find the recipe my mother gave me which I knew I had written on a post-it and stuck into a cookbook, the thing is I have rather a lot of them. Thankfully I had the sense to put it into in the front of the most obvious cookbook, my tiny "Real Irish Cookery", so the search didn't take long. It was the trying to remember that I had actually stuck it in there that took the time. This recipe has been in my family for well over 60 years or more and I'm sure its a version that was imparted by the nuns in the school my mother went to so has older roots than that.

Treacle Cake

150g butter (softened)
150g sugar
250g flour
3 eggs
2 dessert spoons of treacle
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
70ml milk

Cream together the butter and sugar
Add the eggs one at a time into the sugar and butter
Add the treacle and mix through
Mix together all the dry ingredients and then add gradually to the creamed mix
Lastly add the milk
Place all ingredients into a lined (use non stick baking parchment) baking tin
Bake in a moderate oven on a low shelf at 150 celsius (fan) 160 (non fan) for 2 hours or until a cocktail stick comes out clean

Enjoy!