Little Banana and Cinnamon Cakes

Makes 12

125g butter

1/2 cup logician low GI sugar or 1/2 castor sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 1/2 cups mashed banana (about 4 bananas)

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 cup milk

2 cups of self-raising flour (wholemeal)

Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Prepare a cupcake holders on a tray or grease a cupcake tray.

Cream butter and sugar using electric beaters, until light and creamy. Add the eggs gradually, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla essence and mashed banana, and beat until combined. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the milk. Using a metal spoon, fold in the flour alternatively with the milk. Stir until all of the ingredients are combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cupcake pans filling them about 3/4 full. This will allow for the little cakes to rise.

Bake for around 25-30 minutes, test with a skewer to ensure that it is cooked all the way through. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

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Today, Tim and I trekked out to sunny Melton to the 40k farm, to meet the newly formed SOC II (Seddon Organic Co-op II – more on this later). This was the groups first meet and a bit of a getting to know you session. We were asked to bring a plate for a picnic lunch, so I made these babies this morning. They are straight out of the diabetic living better homes and gardens magazine. They are super easy to make and medium GI – so a good kind of sweet that’s not too full on!

Coconut and Chocolate Macaroons

Makes about 18

3/4 cup shredded coconut

2 egg whites (from 50g eggs)

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 tblsp cocoa powder, sifted

Preheat oven to 170C(fan forced. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Spread coconut over a third baking tray. Bake stirring once, for 5-6 minutes until coconut is toasted. Set aside to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 150C (fan forced).

Using electric beaters, whisk egg whites in a medium bowl until firm peaks form. Add sugar 1 tblsp at a time, beating well after each addition, until thick and glossy.

Sift cocoa powder over egg white and whisk on low speed until combined. Stir in coconut. Spoon teaspoons of the mixture onto 2 lined baking trays, 3 cm apart. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until crisp. Set aside on the trays for 10 minutes to cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

You can keep the macaroons in an air tight container for up to 1 week.

These macaroons are super easy, and take only minute to prepare. The good news is they all got eaten at the picnic and seemed win some fans. At the picnic there were all kinds of yummy things, looking forward to sharing recipes and ideas with this new co-op.

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Low GI Banana Nut Bread

1 and 1/2 cups of logicane Low GI sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs, beaten

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

2 teaspoons baking powder

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups wholemeal plain flour.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add beaten eggs and mashed bananas, mix until combined.

Warm milk slightly in a separate dish and add baking soda, stand for a few minutes then add to the banana mix. Mix in the flour, vanilla and chopped nuts.

Pour into a baking loaf tin that is lined with baking paper.

Bake at 350F (180C) for 50 minutes. Cool on a rack before serving.

Most people who ate this had no idea I’d used wholemeal flour, so I guess the husky bits were not all that noticeable. To make any banana cake/bread you should use super ripe bananas. The skin should be black and the banana smell almost over bearing! This is how you get the best flavour. The walnuts give you a little bit of crunch along the way. I put a couple on top of the of the mixture before putting it into the oven, basically to make with the pretties.

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Day 8, Sun. I’m currently in the Barossa Valley for the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technologies’s (AIFST) Sensory Symposium. I had to be up at the butt crack of dawn for breakfast and then get on a bus. This is the view from my room.

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Day 7 Button! This is my badge. I have a lot of badges, but this one is an old fav.

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Day 6 dinner… I had bbq salmon, dukkha potato wedges and salad! But since you missed that. Here’s a photo of a plate with dinner on it!

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Preheat oven to 140°C  (280F). Position a rack on the second lowest shelf of the oven. Brush a round 25cm (base measurement) cake pan with the melted butter to lightly grease. Line base and sides with non-stick baking paper.

Place the self-raising flour, plain flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs and vanilla essence in a large mixing bowl. Use an electric beater to beat on low-speed for 30 seconds or until just combined. Increase the speed to high and beat for 1-2 minutes or until the mixture is thick and all the butter is incorporated.

Split the mixture into 3 bowls evenly. In the first bowl shift the cocoa powder into the mixture and stir/beat until combined. This is your chocolate cake. Move onto the next bowl, add around 3-4 drops of green food dye, mix it in and see what your colour is like! For this bowl you are going for a lighter green colour. I recommend trying to get the light colour sorted first, if you accidentally slip and add too much green food colour, you can always use this as the darker coloured green! Once you have the light one sorted move onto the brighter green. For this one go with 6-8 drops of food colouring. Mix it in and compare to your light green colour. There should be a marked difference between the two. Don’t worry if it’s really bright – this will just make it more fun!

Ok now you are ready to start layering your cake. Grab your prepared cake pan and 3 teaspoons. Begin by spooning lumps of alternating coloured cake mix into the base of the cake pan. Continue to layer until all of the 3 mixtures have been used. With a clean teaspoon smooth out the top of the mixture, at this point you can swirl some of the colours together to integrate the top of the cake. Don’t mix too much – just enough to smooth the top of the mixture out.

Bake in preheated oven for around 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack for 2 hours or until completely cool.

To complete your cake, you’ll need to ice it (well you don’t have to! It does seem like a shame to cover up that amazing looking top!), but if you want fatten up your cake eaters then I suggest a butter cream icing! In a bowl combine the butter and icing sugar, add in the melted chocolate and combine until smooth. This can at times take some balancing – if your icing is too thick and a tiny bit of milk. If it’s too thin add a little icing sugar until you get the mix right. Using a pallet knife smooth your icing on top of the cake. You can pick up little plastic army men to top your cake with as decoration and most of all enjoy!

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Day #5 10am – records and blogging are the order of the day so far.

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Yep, I’m pretty sure Don and I aren’t acquainted. Feb Photo A Day Challenge Day 4 A Stranger.

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Bird hand puppets as modelled by Tim, in my pianola lampshade.

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