Banana, walnut & sultana cake

I don't make banana cakes too often as I don't particularly like them. There's too many large, bland (and often dry) ones. Or else they have that slight stickiness and a none too pleasant banana smell about them. Instead I've been happier to freeze my ultra ripe bananas for smoothies instead for their luscious creaminess.

But there is one banana cake recipe I've always kept. Many moons ago one of the playgroup mothers made this cake and it's about the only one I've ever loved.  

It's not a deep, high-rise cake but sits low in the tin, is wonderfully moist, slightly spicy and has the crunchiness of the walnuts and chewy sultanas.  

Serve it as a cake but it's just as good straight from the oven as a dessert with some whipped cream or vanilla mascarpone. I like to serve it with Greek yoghurt.

Banana, walnut & sultana cake

2 bananas, peeled and chopped
1 cup walnuts, quartered
1 cup sultanas
2/3 cup soft brown sugar
100g butter, melted
1 egg
1 cup self-raising flour 
2 teaspoons mixed spice

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line a 23cm cake tin.

Mix the bananas, walnuts, sultanas and sugar in a mixing bowl. 

Beat the egg and melted butter together and stir in to the banana mixture. 

Sift the flour and spices together then add them to the mix, stirring gently just to incorporate.

Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Ginger & Sultana Loaf

I'm a huge fan of very dark, sticky and spicy gingerbread and the last time I baked one, I posted it way back in 2011 here, so it's been a long wait...

Unlike the earlier gingerbread, this one won't knock your socks off, but it is a good, moist loaf with chunks of stem ginger and sultanas. If you can, use stem ginger (I used Opies Stem Ginger in Syrup which comes in a jar) as it really adds to the flavour of the loaf.  If not, leave it out (you'll still get the taste from the ground ginger) or use chopped crystallized ginger instead. 

Like most gingerbread loaves it improves with age over a week but as noted in my last gingerbread post, I've never tested that theory as nothing ever lasts that long (unless it's inedible).

And, as I've used one in my photo, let me just say how much I love hellebores or winter roses. I have little clumps of them under trees and their hidden beauty always makes me smile. One trick I learned from an English home and garden magazine was to leave the picked hellebores somewhere midway between the cold outside and warmth inside (the entrance way works for us) to let them adjust to a warmer temperature.  They then won't droop so quickly when they feel the heat. Me? I never droop in the heat - bring it on!

Ginger & Sultana Loaf

100g butter

100g dark cane (or soft brown) sugar

100g treacle

1 egg, beaten

200g plain flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

150ml warm milk

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

50g sultanas

2 pieces of stem ginger, chopped (optional)

(I add any syrup clinging to the stem ginger too - nice & sticky!) 

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C. 

Grease and line a loaf tin.

Place the butter, sugar and treacle in a saucepan and heat gently until melted, stirring constantly.  Allow to cool slightly, then beat in the egg.

Sift the flour and spices into a mixing bowl, then stir in the melted mixture and beat well to combine.

Mix the milk with the bicarbonate of soda and add this to the mix.  Stir in the sultanas and the stem ginger. 

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin. 

Dutch Ginger Cake

Last month we were having book club at the great baker’s house and I was eyeing up what I thought was an apple cake. Turns out it was a Dutch Ginger Cake made by the host (not Dutch) and it was lovely.  She muttered some of the ingredients – almonds, butter, ginger.  I don’t know why but I didn’t ask for the recipe.  I think there was too much conversation going on at the time.

I hadn’t heard of this cake before, although I have seen something similar packaged as cake fingers or slices in specialty Dutch shops.

Later, I googled it and found this recipe by one of my favourite cooks, Maggie Beer.  She is such a delight on television exuding warmth and such enthusiasm.

I thought I had preserved ginger in a jar in the cupboard but it turned out to be stem ginger. I drained it and used half as much as was called for in the recipe.  That turned out to be perfect. Whew!

The cake is dense, rich and buttery.  When I pressed the raw dough into the tin I thought it was too buttery and it was just a tad but not enough to detract.  The ginger and almonds absolutely make this cake and I would definitely make it again.

One more thing. This cake is quite shallow (in height, not personality) which isn’t evident in the photo above so don’t be expecting a tall cake.

I think I've just made the deadline to get this into Sweet New Zealand which, this month, is hosted by the lovely Sue at Couscous & Consciousness.

Dutch Ginger Cake

60g whole almonds

185g butter

1 ¾ cup standard flour

¼ tsp salt

2/3 cup (145g) caster sugar

75g stem ginger, drained and chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (fan bake).

Grease and line the base of a 22cm shallow round tin. (I used a not-so-shallow cake tin.)

Place the whole almonds in boiling water for 1 minute. Drain then squeeze the skin off.  The nuts should slip out easily.  Set aside.

Melt the butter and allow to cool slightly. 

Sift the flour and salt together.  Add the sugar then stir in the chopped stem ginger.

Set 1 teaspoon of the beaten egg aside (to brush the cake).  Stir in the remainder of the egg into the flour, salt, sugar and ginger mix.  Add the butter, mix well into a dough.

Press the dough into the greased tin.  Brush the top of the dough with the teaspoon of egg.

Scatter the almonds on the top and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes until golden and firm to touch.

Leave to cool in the tin. 

You can leave as is (I did) or dust with icing or caster sugar to finish.

Pistachio & Ginger Slice

The kitchen hand is in danger of being fired for failing to follow instructions. He was given precise directions on size when he offered to cut this slice into pieces. I even showed him a photo from a recipe book of the desired shape and size (I’m not being anal, he’s very visual, you know).  Some time later, a baking tin arrived in front of me with a completely different take on what I’d imagined.  Hmmm.  Fortunately for him I was not in possession of a sharp knife.  His reasoning was that they'd been made (by me, I might add) for a group meeting of his camera club and the smaller size would go further and be easier to handle. And because this slice, irresistible as it is, is not for the faint-hearted and should be made for sharing, I’ll let him off – just this once.

Pistachio & Ginger Slice

Makes 20-30 
(depending on who’s cutting)

2 ½ cups standard flour, sifted 


1 cup caster sugar 


2 tsp ground ginger 


1 tsp baking powder 


250g cold butter, chopped

Ginger icing:

150g butter 


¼ cup golden syrup 


1½ tbsp ground ginger 


1½ cups icing sugar, sifted

Pistachio topping:

About ½ cup pistachios, shelled & toasted (see recipe below)

Preheat oven to 180C.

Put the flour, sugar, ground ginger and baking powder in a food processor and pulse to combine.  Add the chopped butter and process until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Press into a 20cm x 30cm tin lined with baking paper.  It will look quite crumbly at this stage but as the butter heats it comes together.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden and firm to the touch.

Pistachio topping

While the slice is cooking, toast the pistachios in a dry pan over a medium heat for a few minutes, stirring frequently, until lightly browned.  Be careful not to let them burn.  Chop into smaller, but not too small, pieces and leave some whole.

Ginger icing

Put the butter, golden syrup and ginger in a saucepan over medium heat and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the butter is melted.

Stir through the sifted icing sugar and pour immediately over the slice. Refrigerate for about half an hour, then sprinkle over the pistachio topping.  Place back in the fridge and leave for about an hour or until the icing is set.

Cut into squares or slices – whatever size you want, I won’t be watching.

Slightly adapted from a basic ginger crunch recipe from Donna Hay

Pear & Walnut Gingerbread Cakes

When someone asked me for a recommendation for a dessert recently this one tripped off my tongue with no hesitation.  Spicy gingerbread, pears and warm butterscotch sauce are just the perfect combination for a winter pudding. I’ve been making this one since I first discovered it in Cuisine magazine seven years ago. 

After passing the recipe on to said friend, I then hankered to bake it myself.  That said, there was no foreseeable need for a large cake in our mini-household of two.  So I fell back on my tried and trusty Plan B – make smaller cakes!  The beauty of this was that those not consumed immediately are ready in the freezer for those days when I can’t resist something sweet with coffee (every day, then?).

The recipe given is for the entire cake and I urge you to make it whole.  The finished cake looks amazing with a circle of halved pears drizzled with butterscotch sauce.

However, if you want to make the smaller cakes, use lightly greased friand or cupcake tins.  I halved the recipe (and used one pear instead of three) and instead of creaming the first portion of butter and sugar to line the tin, I creamed all the butter and sugar (without adding any extra ingredients at this first stage) and dropped in about a teaspoon to line each friand mould. Into each tin, I placed two slices of pear. I omitted the walnut halves completely.  I then added the remaining ingredients (including the walnut pieces) to the creamed butter and sugar and continued as per the recipe stated.  I cooked the cakes for about 20 minutes.  Just test them by pressing lightly on top with your fingertips or inserting a cake skewer in the centre.  The halved recipe made about seven little cakes.

And as for the butterscotch sauce - who could resist it?  Well apparently I could after I failed to make it properly on this occasion.  I think I may have overcooked it as it hardened immediately when it was poured over the pudding.  Resembling wax drips from a candle I was then able to lift it off completely, looking like a toffee-coloured, plastic mould.  Oh well, fortunately the cakes were just divine even without the sauce.

Pear & Walnut Gingerbread Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce

Serves 6-8

210g butter

250g muscovado sugar

3 ripe pears, peeled, halved & cores removed (with a melon baller if you have one)

6 walnut halves

2 eggs

2 tablespoons treacle

250g flour

1/2 cup walnut pieces

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp each ground cinnamon and cloves

150ml warm milk

Preheat the oven to 175°C.

Cream 60g of the butter and 90g of the sugar and spread over the base of a 24cm-diameter cake tin.

Place the pear halves, core side down, on top of the creamed butter and sugar. Dot the walnut halves in between the pear halves.

Cream the remaining butter and sugar then beat in the eggs and treacle. Stir in remaining ingredients until well mixed but do not beat. Pour the mixture over the pears and walnuts.

Place in the oven and bake for 50-60 minutes or until you can tell the pears are tender when a skewer slides easily through a pear half to the bottom of the tin and the middle of the pudding batter is cooked.

Serve with the hot butterscotch sauce and a dusting of icing sugar.

Butterscotch sauce

240g caster sugar

240g brown sugar

2 tbsp golden syrup

250ml cold water

1½ tbsp butter

½ tsp vanilla essence

Put the sugars, golden syrup and 150ml of the cold water into a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugars and syrup.

Once boiling, stop stirring and boil until a little dropped into a glass of cold water forms a soft ball (5 minutes).

Remove from the heat, add the butter, the remaining water and vanilla and mix well, but do not beat.

Cool. It will become quite hard and crystallize once cold.

Just before serving, bring to the boil to melt and dissolve any sugar crystals.

Recipe from Ray McVinnie

Cuisine magazine Issue 111, July 2005

Very Berry Belgian Biscuits

I may have said this before but I have had less success with biscuits than any other form of baking.  Since I started this blog though I’ve been feeling happier with my biscuit baking results, particularly the Passionfruit and Monte Carlo cream biscuits from earlier posts.  Time then for another biscuit recipe.

I often see Belgian biscuits in cafes, but I suspect the uniformity in their shape, size and colour indicates they are bought in from a supplier. They always look so attractive though and I wanted to make them at home.

I like the spiciness of these biscuits and (I almost feel ashamed to say this) I adore the shades of pink in the icing.  It’s just such a happy colour for me (please don’t judge me), so I definitely wanted to pretty mine up and get a nice shade going.  When you get them this good-looking, they don’t even need a card that says Eat Me. 

When I picked a branch of blossom from the garden to use in the photo I didn’t imagine the tones of pink would match so well with the biscuit’s topping, but they did.  Same with the serviette - I popped it under the biscuit and wow, I love those colours. 

The “berry” in the title arose from the fact that after I’d baked the biscuits, I discovered I had NO jam.  Raiding the fridge resulted in zero jam.  Raiding the pantry unearthed old plum jam fit only for the bucket.  The thought of dropping in on the neighbours did cross my mind but I couldn’t bear their pitying looks at seeing the city girl gone country, bereft of a single pot of jam whilst their shelves bulged with homemade jams, preserve and more besides.  On the pretext of buying a newspaper, I drove to the local (and tiny) garage.  Garage owner, Phil, obviously does not make his own jams either as he had ONE jar of Craig’s Three Berry jam looking rather forlorn on the shelf.  But, hey, it was all that I needed, thanks.

I used a little blackcurrant freeze-dried powder from Fresh As to give the icing a zingy little flavour and to make a more vibrant shade.   The Three Berry jam matched beautifully.  A sprinkle of the blackcurrant powder on top of the biscuits and it all came together.  (If you don’t have access to fruity, freeze-dried powders, I have given the more standard icings and toppings below.)

It all turned out rather better than I’d hoped for.  I love those kinds of moments.

The biscuits are my entry this month to Sweet New Zealand - started by Alessandra Zecchini and also hosted by her this month.

Belgian biscuits

125g softened butter

¼ cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp cocoa powder

about ¼-½-cup jam (I used Three Berry flavoured, raspberry is more common)

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat well. 

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice and cocoa powder together.  Incorporate the dry ingredients into the creamed butter mix until it comes together as a dough. 

On a lightly floured board, roll the dough out to about 3mm thick then use a cookie cutter (mine was 6cm) to cut out rounds. Place on a greased oven tray and bake at 180°C for 15 minutes.

When the biscuits are cold, sandwich them with the jam, then ice and top them as below.

Icing and topping

1c icing sugar

1/8 tsp Fresh As blackcurrant powder *

1 – 1½ tbsp milk

1 tsp melted butter

blackcurrant powder for topping**

Sift the icing sugar and blackcurrant powder into a small bowl. Add the milk and melted butter and stir until the icing is well combined and of spreadable consistency. Add a little more milk if it is too stiff. Spread over the biscuits. 

Sprinkle the top of the biscuits with the blackcurrant powder or coloured sugar**.

Follow these instructions if you don’t have freeze-dried powder

* Dip a cocktail stick or small skewer into red food colouring and add to the icing sugar, milk and butter mix until you have the shade you want. 

**Coloured sugar – put ¼ cup sugar in a small plastic bag and add 1 or 2 drops of red food colouring.  Rub the bag between your hands until well combined.

The biscuit base recipe comes from the Edmonds Cookbook.