Oaty banana snack cake

I don't know where I got this recipe - it was in my collection of recipes, hand-written in those days when I (presumably) didn't have a printer handy. I can't imagine why else I would have written it out painstakingly rather than printing it. Once upon a time, I used to be an enthusiastic letter writer, writing chatty letters of up to a dozen pages to penpals and friends. In fact, the number of handwritten pages doubled if I was writing to my German penpals at the time, because I'd have to compose my letter in "rough" (because of the many stop-starts and cross-outs) and then copy it out again in "fair". 

And to think that now, if I have to write more than 10 lines at a stretch, I get cramps in my hand...! Yes, actual cramps - and honestly I don't know whether that's due to old age or the unaccustomedness of exerting pressure on a pen with my fingers. I did attempt to write longhand letters to a couple of old friends recently, but the effort didn't last beyond two exchanges. The fact that I don't write anymore has no bearing on my love for writing paper and fountain pens - I just LOVE both!

Um... yes, I do realise that pens, paper and handwritten letters have no bearing on this recipe. The cake is chewy with oats, rich with the flavour of bananas and not very sweet. I used an expensive brand of orange oil extract because I didn't have any oranges (for zest). But do use actual fresh orange zest (and 1/4 cup of orange juice) if you have them. The batter is thick enough to take the optional 1/4 cup of juice without becoming overly runny.

Recipe for: Oaty banana cake

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups oats (I used organic jumbo oats)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/3 heaping cup demerara sugar (or use brown sugar)
1/3 cup sultanas or raisins
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (two medium)

1 large egg
1 cup yogurt (I used low-fat Greek style)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp orange zest or 2 tsp orange oil extract
2 tbsp oil
1/4 cup orange juice (optional)

Method:

1. Mix together the oats, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, raisins and cinnamon powder in a large bowl.

2. In another bowl, lightly beat the egg, then whisk in the yogurt, oil, vanilla extract, orange zest

and mashed bananas.


3. Pour the wet batter into the dry mix,

then lightly stir until just mixed.

Do not overbeat. The batter will be quite thick.
4. Spray a 7" square baking pan with Pam (or grease thoroughly with butter, if you like), and pour the batter into the pan.
5. Bake at 180C/350F for about 30-40 minutes, or till a tester comes out clean.

Check the cake after 30 minutes and keep an eye on it thereafter. Once the cake is done, let it remain in the pan for 5  minutes. Remove to a wire cooling rack.

When the cake is cool, cut into bars and serve. 

RECIPE: OATY BANANA SNACK CAKE

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups oats (I used organic jumbo oats)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1/3 heaping cup demerara sugar (or use brown sugar)

1/3 cup sultanas or raisins

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (two medium)

1 large egg

1 cup yogurt (I used low-fat Greek style)

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp orange zest or 2 tsp orange oil extract

2 tbsp oil 
1/4 cup orange juice (optional)

Method:

1. Mix together the oats, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, raisins and cinnamon powder in a large bowl. 

2. In another bowl, lightly beat the egg, then whisk in the yogurt, oil, vanilla extract, orange zest and mashed bananas. 

3. Pour the wet batter into the dry mix, then lightly stir until just mixed. Do not overbeat. The batter will be quite thick. 

4. Spray a 7" square baking pan with Pam (or grease thoroughly with butter, if you like), and pour the batter into the pan. 

5. Bake at 180C/350F for about 30-40 minutes, or till a tester comes out clean. Check the cake after 30 minutes and keep an eye on it thereafter. Once the cake is done, let it remain in the pan for 5  minutes. Remove to a wire cooling rack. When the cake is cool, cut into bars and serve. 

Chunky apple and orange cake

They say you can’t compare apples and oranges. I guess I can see why. Apples are hard and have thin skins you can usually eat; oranges and soft and you can’t eat the skin (at least not raw). Apples can be red or green or pink, whereas oranges are usually... well, orange. Apples are famously cooked in pies, and as far as I’m aware, I’ve never come across orange pie. (I might be merely ignorant, of course.)

The good thing here is that they – whoever they are – have never said that apples and oranges can’t be used in a recipe together... and I got proof of this from Google, which came up (only eventually) with a recipe for a cake that seemed easy AND doable AND tasty AND good-looking… AND, as it turned out, a blogger’s mum’s recipe. Evidently other people before me have discovered that apples and oranges go rather nicely – in fact quite deliciously - together in some things, like cake.

Boy, was it good. I reduced the quantity of the ingredients and replaced half the sugar with Splenda, and then halved the quantity of the remaining sugar so that I only used 1/4 cup in all.

Usually baking with just Splenda makes the cake a bit heavier in texture than otherwise – at least that’s been my experience so far. But this cake, although it seemed a tad sticky/moist at first, sort of fluffed itself out when it cooled, so that the cake part was nice and light and spongy. The apple chunks in it kept the cake moist for three days, and it smelt and tasted just as good as fresh, when it was warmed up in the microwave before serving.

It really was a delicious cake and I managed to use up three apples and four small oranges – which had been my intention in the first place.

Recipe for: Chunky apple and orange cake



Ingredients:

3 medium apples
1 tsp cinnamon
2-1/2 tbsp unrefined demerara sugar
2 tsp orange zest

1-3/4 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Splenda
1/2 cup orange juice (from four small oranges)
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
3 tbsp chopped mixed nuts (I used walnuts and almonds)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease a round loose-bottomed (or springform) 7" pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon, sugar and orange zest. Set aside for 10 minutes.



2. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.



3. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla.



4. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones,



then add eggs, one at a time.



Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

5. Pour half of batter into prepared pan.



6. Spread half of apples over it.



7. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Sprinkle the nuts around the apple chunks.



8. Bake for about an hour (check after 45 minutes), or until a tester comes out clean and the cake has pulled away slightly from the pan.



9. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.



Serve warm.

Eggless moist apple cake

After a long time, I'm really excited about an eggless cake. This was originally called "apple pound cake", and arrived in my inbox a few months back. It called for horrendous amounts of eggs and sugar and butter, and although I saved the recipe because I wanted to play around with the ingredients and quantities, I didn't feel like making the effort to turn idle thoughts into action.

However, there were a few Granny Smith apples that had been in the refrigerator for weeks. They needed using up, but they didn't quite look appetising enough to eat (plus there were fresh eating apples which I'd bought, having forgotten about the Grannies!) So I hauled out my file book of "cakes to try" and chanced upon the apple pound cake recipe again... and my mother's presence here encouraged me to omit the eggs, so that she could eat the cake too. I used oil instead of butter, and substituted the eggs with mashed banana, and because I had run out of regular flour, I used self-raising flour. Then of course I wasnt sure how much baking powder/soda I should add to the flour to make up for the lack of eggs... all in all, let's say that I wasnt very certain of the cake's outcome.

Surprisingly, and very pleasingly, it was super moist and wonderfully flavourful - the moistness from the grated apple and the flavour because I'd used cinnamon and cardamom rather than vanilla extract. The layer of apples at the bottom (which became the top when the cake was inverted - oh, did I forget to mention that I made it an upside-down apple cake?) had caramelised just the tiniest bit from the sprinking of demerara sugar I'd added to the cake pan at the first. About 98% of the apples unmoulded cleanly from the pan, but the bits that were left in the pan tasted unbelievably gorgeous - which I scarfed down as cook's perk, naturally...

All in all, the cake was great on its own with a cup of tea, and just as gorgeous warmed slightly and served with vanilla icecream. All in all, one of the nicest eggless cakes I've made despite my meddling with the instructions and ingredients!

Recipe for: Moist apple cake



Ingredients:

3 Granny Smith apples
1-1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp cardamom powder
3/4 cup vegetable/sunflower oil
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tbsp demerara sugar
1 small ripe banana (to make 1/4 cup mashed)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2-3 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Grease an 8” tube pan. Sprinkle demerara sugar evenly over the bottom.



Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Peel and core apples.



Slice one apple in half vertically, turn it a quarter circle and slice again into ¼ cm thick slices.



3. Grate the remaining apples and set aside, covered.



4. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and cardamom powder and salt in a medium bowl.

5. In a large bowl, add the mashed banana, white sugar and vegetable oil.



Beat till well blended.



6. Add the flour in three or four stages, mixing well after each addition.



If the batter gets very thick, add a couple of tbsp milk to make it easier to mix. Don’t add too much milk, though - the grated apples will add enough moisture to the batter later.

7. Fold in the shredded apples



and chopped walnuts into the batter.



8. Arrange the sliced apples on the demerara sugar at the bottom of the pan, overlapping the slices slightly.





9. Spoon the batter evenly over the sliced apples and bake at 180C for 30 minutes.



Check to see if the cake is done; if not, give it another five minutes (and a further 5 if required) and check again. The cake should have pulled away slightly at the edges.



10. Cool the cake in the pan for 15 minutes, then carefully turn out onto a serving plate.



Let cool completely before slicing carefully.



Serve with vanilla icecream or thick cream, if desired.

Banana bread-and-butter pudding

The nice thing about this bread-and-butter pudding is that it needs only 1 tbsp sugar – the natural sweetness of bananas, sultanas and currants more than suffices, especially for those without a sweet tooth the size of Ayers Rock. And if you don’t wish to use even that 1 tbsp sugar (mainly to sprinkle on top, for caramelisation purposes), well, this becomes an entirely processed-sugar-free recipe. Not bad for a dessert, is it? Serve this pudding with sugar-free or low-sugar icecream, or light cream, and the sin points still wouldn’t add up as much as from, say, a slice of frosted chocolate cake with cream.

Pete, as usual, doesn’t like desserts which combine eggs and milk – even if the end result isn’t as custardy as custard-from-scratch. To his credit, he did try a spoonful of this banana bread-and-butter pudding and pronounced it “very tasty”… but it still didn’t encourage him to go for a separate portion of his own. Which is okay, because I’ll get to have this over the next 4 days. It makes for a pretty small(ish) pudding – three reasonable servings, or four small ones, or two large greedy ones. All without the addition of icecream, that is.

It would be best to use slightly overripe bananas in this recipe, as there is no extra sugar added (worth saying again, I think!). Served warm, this pudding is really rather nice on a cold evening.

Recipe for: Banana bread-and-butter pudding



Ingredients:

4 slices bread
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp sultanas
3 tbsp currants
1 large ripe banana, sliced
1 tbsp demerara sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup (225ml) milk

Method:

1. Beat the egg and milk together with the vanilla extract. Reserve.



2. Cut the crusts off the bread.



3. Lightly butter one side of each slice and cut each slice into four.



4. Mix the sliced bananas with the sultanas and currants.



5. Butter a 1-litre baking dish lightly. Arrange half the pieces of bread, buttered side up, in the bottom of the baking dish.



6. Spoon half the banana-sultana mix over the bread.



7. Pour half the milk mixture over this, making sure to cover all the bread. Sprinkle 1/2 tbsp demerara sugar over.



8. Layer the remaining pieces of bread, buttered side up again,



then the remaining banana slices,



and pour the rest of the milk over.



Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 tbsp of demerara sugar over the top.



9. Press down gently and evenly to make sure that the bread pieces are all covered by the milk. Allow to soak for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.

10. Heat the oven to 180C and bake the pudding for 30-40 minutes or till the top layer of banana pieces are caramelised and the bread turns golden brown.



11. Serve warm as is, or with ice-cream or cream, if preferred.