Banana And Peanut Butter Cake

Today was my daughter's first day back at school, so I thought I'd do some baking so that she had a treat to come home to. Such a nice Mum that I am!

When I looked in the fridge, I didn't quite have enough butter for the cake I was going to make. In a stroke of genius, I thought I'd use peanut butter in its place and this delicious banana and peanut butter cake was born! Using brown sugar, instead of white, also gives it a beautiful caramel colour and intensifies the flavour.

The peanut butter icing is absolutely amazing. Mr eat quaff laugh, who doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, claimed it was 'delicious'! If you want a smoother icing, use smooth peanut butter. I only had the crunchy version in the cupboard, but didn't mind having a few bits of nuts in mine.

If you like lots of icing on your cake, or you're likely to eat half of it straight out of the bowl (like I did) then I'd recommend making a double batch. It disappears without even knowing it! To get a bit fancy, you could decorate the top with extra roasted peanuts and some banana chips.

This cake  is yummy! Go on and make it for an after school or work treat :-)

Banana And Peanut Butter Cake

100g butter, softened

50g peanut butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 1/2 cups SR flour, sifted

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

2 Tbs milk

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees.

Grease a cake tin with oil spray. I used a loaf tin, but you could use round or square, if you prefer.

Beat butter, peanut butter and sugar until creamy.

Add eggs, mashed banana and vanilla and beat well.

Fold in the sifted dry ingredients and milk until well combined.

Pour into the tin and smooth the top.

Bake for 35-40 mins or until golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes in the tin and then tip onto a cake rack to cool completely.

When cold, ice with peanut butter icing

Peanut Butter Icing

150g cream cheese, softened

2 Tbs peanut butter

3 Tbs icing sugar

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix until smooth and creamy.

Enjoy!

Rhubarb And Yoghurt Cake

I love making a good cake and school holidays has been the perfect time for me to do some baking with the kids. They love helping to measure out the ingredients and mix it all together, but the best part is licking the spoon! I used to love doing that as a kid too. Like mother, like daughter!

The other day I picked up a big bunch of rhubarb from the clearance table at the fruit shop. I went in for two things, but came out with cauliflower, a bag of yellow capsicums, purple carrots and rhubarb. You can't take me anywhere!

Last time I cooked with rhubarb it was in a Jamie Oliver recipe with pork. See that recipe here. It was absolutely delicious, but I knew that I wanted to make something sweet with it this time. I was going to make a lovely tart with ricotta and lemon rind, but thought that a good old-fashioned cake might go down better with the mums and kids coming over for a play date this morning.

The yoghurt makes the cake lovely and moist and gives it a slight tartness. If you wanted a slightly sweeter version, use vanilla yoghurt instead of natural, or one of the gourmet flavoured yoghurts with a flavour that you think will match the rhubarb well. The brown sugar also gives a beautiful richness and molasses-y flavour to the cake. If you don't have vanilla sugar to sprinkle over the top, just use extra brown sugar or even just caster sugar.

I'm guessing that the cake was a hit with everyone this morning, given how quickly it was demolished!

I hope you enjoy baking this cake too.

Rhubarb And Yoghurt Cake

60g butter, at room temperature

1 tsp finely grated lemon rind

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup SR flour

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup natural yoghurt

A bunch of rhubarb, ends trimmed and cut into 2cm pieces (I had 10 sticks)

1 Tbs vanilla sugar

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.

Grease and line a 23cm round tin.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or using hand beaters, cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each one. Add the vanilla with the last egg.

Fold in the sifted flours and yoghurt. The mixture will be quite thick.

Stir in the chopped rhubarb to combine.

Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and spread to flatten the top.

Sprinkle the sugar evenly over the top.

Bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.

Enjoy with a nice cup of tea or coffee :-)

Chocolate And Raspberry Cupcakes

Happy World Chocolate Day (well, for yesterday anyway)! With moving house, cleaning and trying to unpack and get things organised, I've been a little slack in the cooking and blogging stakes. Not having a computer or internet set up doesn't help either!

I won't say that I'm completely back on board yet, but when I discovered that yesterday was World Chocolate Day, I just knew that I had to get baking.

With cocoa and other baking essentials in the cupboard and raspberries in the freezer, my mind was made up. Chocolate and raspberry cupcakes! Not too rich, but with a good chocolatey flavour and lots of tart, juicy raspberries to add a contrast.

I made mini cupcakes in muffin tins and larger ones in butterfly tins, but you could use whatever you have. You could even just bake in a regular cake tin if you liked. Just adjust the cooking time to suit.

This is a really quick cooking recipe, so it's perfect for school holidays or when you need a treat at short notice. Originally, the recipe came from my mum and it's just had a few tweaks here and there. I hope it becomes a regular in your house too.

Chocolate And Raspberry Cupcakes

125g butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/2 cups SR flour
1/2 cup frozen raspberries (or a few more if you like lots!)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Grease muffin tins of your preferred size. Line with paper cases if you have them.
Combine butter, sugar, cocoa, bicarbonate, water and milk in a saucepan.
Stir over a medium heat until the butter is melted and all the ingredients are combined.
Bring to the boil and then remove from the heat and allow to cool.
When cool, add the egg and sifted flour.
Gently stir through the frozen berries.
Spoon into mini muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes, or until firm and risen and a skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out on to a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy as is, or dust with a mixture of icing sugar and cocoa or be truly decadent and top with melted chocolate and a few extra raspberries!

Pumpkin Streusel Cake

After making pumpkin soup, pasta with a pumpkin, bacon and blue cheese sauce and giving a huge wedge away, I still had some of our GIANT pumpkin left over!

I haven't done any baking for a while, so figured this was the perfect time to experiment with a pumpkin cake. You can make carrot or zucchini cakes, so why not pumpkin?

I modified a recipe for a carrot cake that I picked up from somewhere years ago and decided to dress it up with layers of a streusel topping. You could probably put the topping onto the top of the cake, rather than baking it in layers, but I think it was nice to have the surprise of the nuts, sugar, cinnamon and dates inside. I used mixed nuts as that's what I had in the cupboard, but feel free to use your favourite type of raw nut. Walnuts, almonds, pistachios or pecans would all be lovely.

The pumpkin flavour wasn't as strong as I thought it might be, but it certainly added a different flavour than carrot or zucchini. Slightly more earthy and not quite as sweet.

All in all, I was pretty impressed with how the cake turned out. It does take a long time to cook, so you might need to protect the top of the cake with some foil if it's starting to brown too much.

I didn't ice my cake, because the kids wanted to eat some straight out of the oven, but you could simply dust with icing sugar or make up some cream cheese icing. In fact, lemony cream cheese icing would be perfect on this cake for a morning or afternoon tea treat.

Pumpkin Streusel Cake

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup mixed nuts, chopped

1/3 cup dates, finely chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

3 cups SR flour

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

2 cups pumpkin, grated

3 eggs

1 cup natural yoghurt (you could use vanilla too for a slightly sweeter version)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Grease and line a 22cm round cake tin.

Sift flour into a bowl and then add the sugar and pumpkin.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, yoghurt and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Spread 1/3 of the cake mixture into the tin and top with half the streusel mixture.

Repeat layers, finishing with a layer of cake batter.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Gently place a piece of foil over the top of the cake if it's getting too brown.

Allow to rest for 5 minutes in the tin before turning out onto a cake rack to cool.

Dust with icing sugar or ice with cream cheese icing, if you like.

Enjoy!