banana cake

My husband got me a standmixer for Christmas - it arrived really quickly and we opened it since this means I can use it to make stuff for Christmas more easily! My husband gave me a rundown of the features (he's compulsive about reading manuals) and my daughter must have been paying attention because the next day she gave me another whole spiel about it and demonstrated the mechanism for moving the bowl up and down. Then she wanted to use it and since we had some over ripe bananas lying around the kitchen we improvised a banana cake. The basis for this cake lies in three banana bread recipes that I like - one from bakingbites, one from orangette and one by Delia Smith (from a recipe book my mum owns, oh but wait it's on her website - I usually omit the walnuts and add chocolate chips and chopped dates).

Banana Cake

5oz butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
4 Tbspns walnut oil
4 bananas
1 egg (I wasn't originally intending to use the egg but my daughter fetched one from the fridge and insisted)
1 1/2 Tbspn rum (optional)
1 cup AP flour
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger (to taste)
3/4 cup coconut
1 cup chocolate chips

• cream butter and sugar

• add remaining wet ingredients and mix thoroughly

• mix dry ingredients in separate bowl

• add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined

• pour batter into 9x9 cake pan

• sprinkle with demerara/turbinado sugar (or the coarsest grained kind you have)

• bake in a 350 degree oven for approximately 40 minutes

This is a moist, slightly crumbly cake. We brought half of it to share at breaktime during the evening singing (along with another oaty thing I threw together) and we didn't bring any leftovers home so I'll take that as a positive review.

Unfortunately with the miserable weather we're having at the moment getting a good photo is more difficult than usual. Maybe the sun will come out again before it's all eaten...

craftiness in the blood

My daughter has been very interested in my sewing, knitting and crochet for a long time. Now of course she wants to help me constantly. Partly inspired by Soulemama* and partly by memories of my own sewing projects my mum set up for me as a child, I helped my daughter do her first sewing project. I found some cross-stitch fabric (which has holes she can poke the needle through built in) which I put into an embroidery hoop. She chose some embroidery floss (blue first as it seems to be her favourite at the moment) and threaded up a cross-stitch (blunt tipped) needle for her.

She's only two and it was her first try so I mostly held the hoop for her and reminded her which side to work from with each stitch, but she retained creative control so far as where the needle and thread went. It may not actually be complete yet because she wanted to add some pink and more blue. I think she did a pretty good job with her "crochet" as she keeps insisting on identifying it! (I scanned this as an experiment hence the blotchy bits where the canvas isn't quite flat.)

* I'm adding this to the Creative Family Pool at Flickr where you can find lots of photos posted by people inspired by soulemama's book The Creative Family. (I went to one of the book events when the book came out in the spring time. I find Amanda's book and blog constantly inspirational.)