Tasty recipes for you to cook

We had a lovely family Easter, both the children were home plus Bobbin (dog). Alice and I baked, knitted, crocheted, made organza flowers and shopped, a bit of mum and daughter bonding. This is the recipe for the Banana Cake we made for Easter, this recipe is great if you want to use up very ripe bananas. For the topping we melted chocolate then decorated it with chocolate animals and Maltesers.

BANANA CAKE

In Poundland I found some silicone ice cube trays, in the shape of really cute animals. In the pack you get two sets of animals, I chose the ones with ducks, dogs, squirrels and rabbits. I looked at them and thought the moulds would be perfect for chocolate. I melted some chocolate, in the microwave, poured it into the moulds and left to set. Because the moulds are made from silicone it was easy to remove the shapes from the trays. The animals are just the right size to decorate a cupcake or you could use a few of them to decorate a cake.

This has been a work in progress since the 24th November 2009. It doesn't take a lot of effort, it takes a bit of patience. I am on the home straight now, making the syrup. After making the syrup I realised the jar I had used, initially, wasn't going to have enough capacity for both syrup and vodka/lemon peel. I had to find another receptacle, a glass cookie jar was the only container suitable, I had to hand. I put in less of the syrup, than stated in the recipe, after a little tasting (it's tasting good!), I thought it was sweet enough.

One of my Christmas presents to Steve, my husband, was a work in progress, Limoncello. When Steve goes to Italy on a 'Jolly' (this term is particularly apt as the pub they meet at is called the Jolly Sailor, and their cycling group is called the Jolly Wheelers) he likes to bring back a bottle of Limoncello.

It doesn't take a lot of effort to make, but it takes a bit of patience and time. On the 24 November 2009 I started to make this lemon liqueur. I have only used a 1/2 bottle of vodka, just incase it turns out rubbish!

This is a substantial hearty soup for cold winter days

 INGREDIENTS

I followed the basic Rocky Road recipe from Nigella but changed some of the 'rocks'. I exchanged malteasers for amaretti biscuits, macadamia nuts for Brazil nuts and added crystallised ginger.

This recipe appears in Nigella's book Feast, published by Chatto & Windus.

I made Summer Pudding yesterday there's a recipe for it here . I have to say I have no shame, I cheated and bought frozen Summer fruits from Tesco only £1.29 a bag. I think they're perfect for this pudding.

I saw a recipe in a magazine recently for broad bean pate and wanted to try it. The recipe said 280 grams (10 oz) of beans, I wasn't sure how much to buy of fresh beans to achieve this weight. I bought a 454 grams (1 lb) of beans in their pods, big mistake!

This afternoon we are going to a party so this morning I have made some bite sized scones to take along. They are filled with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry conserve.

Ingredients
  

1. 450g/1lb self raising flour

2. Pinch of salt

3. 100g/4oz butter

4. 50g/2oz caster sugar

5. Milk for binding mixture 

Method


Today I made the brown bread and marmalade version of the classic bread and butter pudding the recipe for it is here It's so simple but delicious!