Cafes & Wineries

This year has been a banana-depriving year for a lot of us living in Australia. Why? A cyclone swept through about 90% of the main banana growing areas in the early part of the year and flattened most of the plantations. The result was, and is, that the price of bananas leaped sky-high to around AUD $12.00 per kg for most part of this year. Thus for most of this year, I have not had a taste of banana at all, not willing to pay that much when there are a lot of other fresh fruits around to fill its place.
Then in the past couple of months, I suddenly discovered tinned bananas! I ask you, tinned bananas, yes, I can’t believed my eyes. So it was home with these tinned bananas for a taste test since they were quite cheap. They must have been picked and canned at just-starting-to-ripe stage because they are quite firm in texture, not mushy as I would have thought tinned bananas would become. Therefore not really nice to eat straight from the tin. But would be better used in baking, I decided.

The Can of Tinned Bananas I bought recently.
As it happened, I have been hooked surfing a couple of New Zealand cooking websites recently and one recipe has me interested because it had rave reviews from a lot of people. And it just happened to be a Banana Cake recipe! So into the kitchen I went and tried out the recipe, albeit with a couple of minor changes.
This is the result, a Banana Chocolate Cake. Wow, what a moist and soft cake it turned out to be! It was also very easy to make, just simply beat to combine dry and wet ingredients until smooth, and that’s it! As the tinned bananas were quite firm, I decided to dice them rather than mashing them as suggested in the original recipe, so you can taste the little chunks of bananas inside the cake. Although I have used tinned bananas here due to circumstances, fresh bananas would have been better and nicer. I must also admit though, I undercooked the cake because I used a smaller tin than suggested to make a ‘higher’ cake and did not bother to check it after baking for 1 hour – resulting in a sinking middle! But luckily it did not affect the texture of the cake, which has easily become one of the best cakes I have ever made!

Adapted from the recipe ‘Best Banana Cake‘ posted by mackenzie2 (4 Sep 2006) at TradeMe, New Zealand.

Makes one square 20cm cake.

[Ingredients]
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1¼ cups (275g) caster sugar
½ cup canola or corn oil
200ml sour cream
300g (net weight) firm but ripe bananas
1¾ cups (260g) plain flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons bicarb of soda

http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease a deep 20cm square cake tin and line base with baking paper.
2. Mix and sift together plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and soda. Set aside. Slice the bananas lengthways into quarters, then slice across into about ¼cm thin dices.

3. Beat eggs and sugar briefly until combined. Add oil and sour cream, beat again to combine. Fold in sliced banana and flour mixture until smooth.
4. Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 70 minutes, or until cooked when tested.

I took out the cake after 60 minutes of baking and did not bother to check if it was fully cooked through – and the middle started to sink after a couple of minutes, I quickly put it back and baked a further 10 minutes but the damaged was done!

[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.

Gingerbread or Ginger Cake? I can never be sure what to call this cake. I have very similar recipes from different books called it either Gingerbread or Ginger Cake. Anyway whatever it is referred to, this is a very easy-to-make cake. I have chosen a Lemon Sauce Topping which is not too sweet but perfectly complimented the cake with a tangy taste.

Adapted from the recipe ‘Ginger Cake’ in ‘Best Ever Recipes’ by The Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbooks, published by ACP Publishing, 1976 (1999 reprint edition), ISBN 0 949128 27 9.

Makes one square 20cm cake.

[Ingredients]
2 cups (300g) plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ cup (165g) caster sugar
100g butter (use normal salted)
¾ cup golden syrup or treacle (or a combination of both)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup (250ml) milk
Lemon Sauce Topping:
½ cup white sugar
½ cup water
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon essence or finely grated rind of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons cornflour, mixed with 1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon butter
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease a deep 20cm square cake tin and line base with baking paper.
2. Put butter and golden syrup (or treacle) into a saucepan, stir over low heat until butter has melted.
3. Sift and mix all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix in beaten egg and milk. Pour in warm melted butter and syrup, mix until smooth.
4. Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 1 hour, or until cooked when tested. Leave in tin for 10 minutes before turning out. Cool then top with lemon Sauce Topping.

Lemon Sauce Topping:
In a saucepan, dissolve sugar in water. Add lemon juice and essence and bring just barely to a boil. Stir briskly while slowly pouring in dissolved cornflour, stir and cook for 1 minute. If there are lumps, sieve. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Let cool.

[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.