Banana Cake

For the majority of last year, the only banana cakes I ate were from MCafe, since I would never wake up on time to attend piano lessons every Saturday morning I had to skip breakfast and I made up for it on the way back home, we would stop by at McDonalds. I usually got banana cake and hot chocolate. The banana cakes there weren't always perfect, they were a little bitter and sometimes had chunks of walnut too big.



Today i made banana cake from the Womens Weekly recipes for kids, and it was delicious. It was moist inside and bursting with a sweet flavour which was a little nutty and had a banana essence. In this recipe, since i didn't have cream cheese, I used a butter cream icing and it was divine.

Asian buns:

Asian buns are basically steamed dough made of self raising flour that has a filling inside. The filling inside generally consists of a mean with some vegetables and will often have a sauce paired with it. These are absolutely delicious, this time round we made them PERFECT. The dough's soury taste from the self raising flour wasn't present and the filling was delicious! I ate so many. Sadly i don't have a picture of them as we were making them in such a hurry, but I'll be sure to put one up next time!


On another note, the biggest full moon in 20 years rises tonight. I just saw it, it's absolutely spectacular. The whole night sky is a navy blue colour and you can see the light bouncing off the moon. I really want to take a picture of this fabulous memory but it's a bit difficult due to it being so dark an the moon being so bright. :(. And until further notice I have to mix ingredients the good old fashioned way with out an electric mixer. Two days ago when I was making banana cake and the beaters were beating on medium speed I accidentally dropped a metal teaspoon between them and the metal teaspoon get completely bent and one of the beaters broke. Beaters are specifically designed for that type of model, so I have to call sunbeam on Monday to order some more, what a pain. But at least i warned you all of how dangerous beaters can be! Not somewhere you want to let your little fingers near!

Rhubarb Souffle

Ok my first recipe, I chose this because it's so simple and will only take around 15 minutes to prepare and you would have all the ingredients at home. I absolutely hate it when recipes include exotic ingredients that are not only hard to find but are such a waste as I'm only going to use them once,. I once brought buttermilk that I was going to use to make pancakes, after using only 100 ML I left the rest to go sour. I wanted to drink the rest but the taste of buttermilk is absolutely revolting and tastes nothing like butter or milk. I usually avoid recipes with these sort of ingredients.

Rhubarb Souffle
 ingredients:

cooking-oil spray
½ cup (110g) caster sugar
1½ cups (165g) coarsely chopped rhubarb
1 tablespoon water
3 egg whites
1 tablespoon icing sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan-forced.



Spray inside of four 1-cup (250ml) ovenproof dishes with cooking-oil spray for 1 second each. Sprinkle base and sides of dishes with 2 tablespoons of the caster sugar. Stand dishes on oven tray.





Combine rhubarb, the water and 2 tablespoons of the caster sugar in small saucepan. Cook, stirring, over medium heat, about 10 minutes or until mixture thickens. Transfer mixture to medium heatproof bowl.





Meanwhile, beat egg whites in small bowl with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining caster sugar; beat until firm peaks form.

Fold egg-white mixture into warm rhubarb mixture, in two batches. Spoon mixture into dishes. Bake in oven about 12 minutes.

Serve soufflés immediately, dusted with sifted icing sugar.
I found this recipe here: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/8108848/rhubarb-souffle



Overall this dish was relavtively easy only cutting the rhubarb was the hardest job of all. Looking at rhubarbs they seem to cut with a slice of the knife and a nice crunchy sound. But oh I was wrong, it took me approximately 30 seconds for me to cut one piece of rubard, and in the end I had to do something that would've have my food tech teacher frowning down at me. I turned the rhubarb on it's side, where it's no flat or stable and I cut it that way. It was so much easier! But you have to be extra careful not to cut yourself.

I have also found that I don't even have one rameskin in my house, and since I didn't have time to go to the shops and buy some, i had to improvise by using cupcake tins. Luckily it worked out fine.  I don't have a picture of the finished product, but lets just say it wasn't very successful. A few minutes after I had taken them out, the tops deflated making a wrinkled surface on top, not very appetizing. From other souffle recipes I gather that you're supposed to leave them in the off oven for a while before taking them out. So don't make the same mistake as me!

New Cooking Books

Due to the fact that no one reads books anymore nowsdays, bookstores are closing down. The Angus and Robertson bookstore near my house was having a 50% off sale storewide, so how could I resist? Luckily I went early and was able to snap up some really good books. I brought ALL cooking books ofcouse. As i went around the shelves I had a big urge to take one of every cooking book there, except obviously I couldn't. I ended up buying 4. They were:
The Biggest Loser cookbook
breakfast -Marie Claire
Picnic hamper
Womans weekly classics- modern food
So i'm so so so excited about these books and can't wait to use them!



Cooking books , originally uploaded by sunshine-yellow.