banana bread

cream 125g of butter and 1 cup of castor sugar. add 2 eggs, one at a time, and beat well. add 3 mashed, very ripe, large bananas and 1 teaspoons of vanilla essence. fold mixture into 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

bake in a buttered loaf tin at 180º celsius for about 45 minutes.

leave to cool for 5 minutes before turning out. an absolute family favourite, this is!

lemon cake

since it’s the weekend and my lemon tree’s decided that now is the time to produce, i’m make a lemon cake. this recipe i got from my dear sister-in-law, suzanne, from germany.

mix together the rind of 3 lemons, 250g melted butter, 4 eggs, the juice of ½ a lemon, 250g sugar and 2 tablespoons vanilla essence.

stir in 500g flour and 1 heaped tablespoon baking powder.

mix to the consistency of thick cream, adding milk if needed.

pour into a buttered loaf tin and bake at 180º celsius for 45 minutes.

squeeze out the juice of the remaining 2½ lemons and sweeten to taste. once the cake is done, use a skewer to make holes in the cake. pour the sweetened lemon juice over. leave to cool and then turn out. dust with icing sugar.