It's cool and I'm baking

Its a nice cool 20 degrees today. There has been some lovely light showers of rain and (at the moment) some sunshine too.

I thought I'd take advantage of the cooler temperature and do some baking.

Meals in summer in my household consists of salad and a bbq chook (chicken) picked up from the local chicken shop. Salad ingredients are gathered from the patch and I whip up a dressing, chop the chook, plate up and voila, dinner is served. If you are looking for a hot meal then you have to wait until the cook feels up to sweating it out in the kitchen AND you have to contribute to the massive electricity bills that the air conditioner will generate.

Anyway, today is lovely and cool and I had some bananas in the fridge looking a bit, well, black, so I thought perhaps a nice loaf of banana bread might be in order.

Banana bread is the second most googled recipe in Australia, the first being zucchini slice, so I had a plethora of choices.

I settled on the most healthy one I could find, which means it's probably the most fattening.

BANANA & RASPBERRY BREAD

Cream together:
115g butter
100g soft dark brown sugar
2 tbsp honey
When combined, mix in 2 beaten eggs and a good squeeze of lemon juice.  

Sift together:
125g plain white flour

banana & raspberry bread

125g wholemeal plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice

Mash:
500g really ripe bananas (3-4 big bananas), the softer the better. 

½ cup frozen raspberries

Stir the flour mix into the butter mix. Dont beat it in, just gently stir.

Fold in the mashed bananas & the frozen raspberries.

Pour into a buttered loaf tin and bake at 170C for 55-60 mins.

Cool slightly before turning out.

Not satisfied with that, I'd found a recipe a couple of days ago for banana, blue berry & walnut muffins.I had a couple more bananas that looked like they were just about to have to be thrown out and thought what the hey, I'll make muffins too.

Its an American recipe, well when I say that I mean that some of the ingredients are a little strange to my ears and are available only in America

I figured that a teaspoon, tablespoon and cup are universal measurements (fingers crossed)

So here is that recipe.

BANANA BLUEBERRY & WALNUT MUFFINS

1cup all-purpose flour (plain flour)

1 cup whole-wheat flour (wholemeal flour not whole wheat)

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda (bi carb soda)

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup splenda brown sugar blend (½ cup? light brown sugar)
½ cup honey

¼ cup agave syrup (I left this out, I think ½ cup honey & ½ cup brown sugar is enough sugar for one recipe)

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

4 tablespoons smart balance butter substitute, melted. (I just used butter although margarine or oil could be used)

1/ cup egg substitute or 1 large egg & 4 egg whites. (3 eggs)

2 very ripe bananas (squished)

zest of 1 orange

½ cup blueberries

banana blueberry & walnut muffins

¼ cup chopped walnuts                                                                          

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 C), grease muffin pan or use paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients & walnuts & stir well.

In a medium bowl, combine brown sugar, agave, vanilla, honey, eggs & melted butter and beat together until smooth. Add the bananas and orange zest and lightly fold until blended. Add this mix to the flour mixture and mix lightly until just combined.

Then, fold in the blueberries.

Portion batter evenly into muffin cups, bake for around 15 – 20 minutes. Cool in the pan for around 5 minutes then transfer muffins to a cooling rack.

Just ate one with a cuppa – delicious.