Everyone loves banana bread and it’s probably a thing at the moment because the global lockdown banana-bread craze makes perfect sense when you consider that bananas are now the world’s number-one fruit.

Bananas are inexpensive, kids like them, banana bread is easy to make and keeps for days. Making banana bread as a means of avoiding food waste isn’t a new idea, it’s the go-to recipe for using up overripe brown bananas. Although banana bread tends to be high in carbs, it can be a source of protein with the right ingredients. Protein is an essential nutrient needed for the growth, repair and recovery of muscle. It also helps to stabilize blood sugar levels.

There’s plenty of mashing and mixing so get the kids involved – you know the results are going to be delicious.

Easy Banana Bread Recipe

Time 90 minutes.

Banana Bread Ingredients

5 medium over ripe bananas
1 ⅔ cup self-raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
⅓ cup caster sugar
⅓ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Banana Bread Baking Method
Preheat your oven to 160C and line a loaf tin with baking paper, this is healthier than greasing the tin with butter.
Mash 3 of the bananas really well and set aside until needed. Chop the remaining two bananas into bite-sized chunks.
Place the self-raising flour, cinnamon, caster sugar, and brown sugar into a kitchen mixing bowl and combine using an electric mixer – adding in the eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and mashed banana to the bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir in the chunks of the two remaining bananas, these will make for surprising flavouisom bites.

Scoop the banana bread mixture into the prepared lined tin and bake for an hour or until the banana bread is cooked through (a metal skewer inserted into the center should come out clean).

Allow the banana bread to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before carefully turning onto a wire rack to cool down completely.

Banana cake and banana bread have similar tastes, but has a few slight changes in recipe, banana cake is a bit sweeter. Keeping with the usual rules and reputation of cakes, banana cake is meant to be more of a dessert, hence the sweeter taste.Banana bread tips & tricks

Useful Cooking Tips for Banana Bread

• Use overripe bananas, the best bananas for banana bread are overripe bananas that are speckled and half black or dark brown
• If you don’t have ripe bananas for flavour, roast them in the over for a bit to toast the bananas until they are brown
• Inject further flavour the darker the sugar you use the more ‘malty’ your banana bread will taste.
• Banana is the ultimate flexible recipe – add walnuts, chocolate chips – use your imagination!

Macarons are not to be confused with macaroons! Macaroons are small and slapdash coconut or almond stacks, sometimes dipped in chocolate. Macarons are cute dainty little sandwiches that are made with meringue, almond flour, and buttercream filling.

Macaron is the French word for macaroon, but are never the coconut-based biscuit – confused yet? Macarons are one of the most amazing pastries, with hundreds of flavours and fillings. Macarons are made from almond flour and meringue the macaron as we know it now, made up of two meringue cookies brought together by a smooth flavored filling, was created in Paris during the 1830s. They also have a reputation for being tricky to make.

Traditional Recipe for Macaroons:

Time 30 to 40 minutes.

1/4 lb. ground almonds or coconut
1/2 lb. castor sugar
whites of 3 or 4 eggs
a few drops lemon juice
wafer paper
a few blanched almonds.

Mix the almonds and sugar in a bowl, and, beating well all the time with a wooden spoon, add the lemon juice and whites of eggs very gradually until the mixture is sufficiently thin to drop from a spoon. Using a forcing bag with a plain pipe, force small portions on to rounds of the wafer paper, and dredge a little icing sugar on top : this will make the mixture crack. Place half a blanched almond split lengthwise on top of each, and bake in a moderate oven until the macaroons are well risen and lightly browned. Place on a grid or sieve to cool and trim the edges of the paper.

Modern French Macaroon (or Macaron!)

4 extra large egg whites
1 ⅔ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 ⅓ cups almond flour
⅛ teaspoon salt
¼ cup superfine (castor) sugar

Place egg whites into a metal mixing bowl and refrigerate overnight. The next day, bring egg whites to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 280 degrees F (138 degrees C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk sugar and almond flour in a bowl. Beat the egg whites with salt with an electric mixer on medium speed until foamy (for about 1 minute); on high gradually beat in the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until the egg whites hold stiff peaks.

Gently fold almond flour mixture into whipped egg whites. Pipe 1-inch disks of meringue onto the baking paper, leaving 2 inches of space between each one. Leave them to stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes.

Place the tray oven and bake with the oven door open slightly until the macarons’ surfaces are completely dry, about 15 minutes. leave to cool completely on a baking sheet before gently removing them.

Spread with any special filling, top with a second to make the sandwich then leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours to overnight to let them soften before serving.

Bon appetit!

Our Chunky Apple Cake Recipe is made over and over again, especially in Autumn. This homemade chunky apple cake recipe took three attempts to get right. It’s a ‘Goldilocks cake’ where my first apple cake attempt was too sweet, the second apple cake was too crumbly BUT the third apple cake was JUST RIGHT!

This Apple Cake Recipe is brilliant because I’ve used half the sugar and half the butter of the usual cake recipes and it’s crammed with delicious apples – the taste is amazing.
Makes a large cake – perfect for using up all those windfall apples or perhaps even sharing!
Prep: 30 mins
Baking: 1hr 10m

Ingredients
· 3 cups of Self-raising flour
· 4 large Eggs
· 4 tsp Baking powder
· 150g Butter
· ½ cup Caster sugar
· ½ cup brown Muscavado sugar
· Zest and juice of 1 unwaxed Lemon
· 2 tbls ground almonds
· 8 Medium apples diced – 4 red & 4 Bramley

Apples first….
Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees
Cut and dice the apples into a large bowl
Zest then squeeze the lemon
Pour then mix the lemon juice in with the apples, putting the zest to one side

Then the dry stuff…
Mix the dry ingredients flour, sugar, baking powder, almonds in a large bowl
Add softened butter (saving a little to grease the cake tin), lemon zest and eggs
Cream the ingredients together using an electric hand mixer. It will initially go quite crumbly, then just when you’re thinking it will never cream – bang!

Mix it up!
Once creamed, fold in the diced apples and lemon juice. Mix very well before putting into a large greased cake tin.
Cover the top of the cake tin with grease proof paper then bake in the oven on a low heat for 1hr.
After 1 hour, remove the grease proof paper then cook for a further 10-15 minutes at 180 degrees.

Once baked, leave the cake to rest for 10 minutes before turning out. Decorate as you please when cool.

Useful Apple Cake Cooking Tips
*Refined sugar is substituted with the natural sweetness of extra Bramley apples which turn to mush and absorb into the cake mixture under a slow heat. The red apples provide mouthfuls of sweet apple bites as they much firmer than the Bramleys and more able to withstand the temperature.
*Leaving the apples unpeeled gives extra texture and fibre plus it saves you the job of peeling!
*The baking paper over the cake helps to retain moisture and prevents burning.
*Leave out the almonds if you’re taking it to a party, work or school. So many people seem to have nut allergies these days.
*Try decorating with Icing sugar, cream and seasonal raspberries (yum), or present just as it is. I lay off on using cinnamon this time of year – its autumn, not Christmas (yet)!