A cake a day keeps the doctor away!

A cake a day keeps the doctor away!

So last weekend was my husbands birthday. We like birthdays and like the 'excuse' to go out for dinner and eat cake! So, we planned who we would see and when and it just so happened that from the friday night till the wednesday night we had a different cake/celebration each night! This wasn't the plan, but we were more than happy to say YES! to any last minute invites here or there! So I thought I would share with you the cakes and their recipes we enjoyed. To recap what we devoured, we had Banana cake friday night with friends, chocolate cupcakes saturday night with husbands side of the family, chocolate ganache cake sunday night with friends again (they must really like seeing us), double chocolate brownies monday night with my brother and his girlfriend, vanilla sponge with milk chocolate icing tuesday night with my side of the family and carrot cake wednesday night as part of our weekly community meal! Now, I love my husband and I LOVE cake, but I did not make all of these, I am not that crazy! I will share with you each day, one of the cakes I made, because eating these surely would keep the doctor away!


Recipe 1.
Best banana cake in the world!

I decided a banana cake was needed to start off the cakefest as I had seen a very delicious recipe in a wondeful cookbook I own. Its called Poh's Kitchen by Poh Ling Yeow. Everything about this book is wonderful, the recipes Ive tried so far are soo good but the way the book looks is just so up my alley!

For the cake, you will need:

125 g unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract

2 large free range eggs

1 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted

2 1/4 tsp baking powder, sifted

1/2 tsp baking soda, sifted

1/4 cup full cream milk

3 overripe bananas, mashed

Preheat oven to 160C or 150C fanforced. Grease and line a round 20cm cake tin.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter, both sugars and vanilla until pale and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, mixing thoroughly after each one. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and fold in with a wooden spoon until fully incorporated.

Mash the bananas and add to the mixture with the milk, and fold in.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake on the middle shelf for about 40 min or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from tin. Cool on a wire rack.

Meanwhile make the addictive icing!

You will need:

50 gm butter, softened

1/2 cup icing sugar

2-3 tbs fresh lemon/lime juice

1/4 cup roasted hazelnuts, chopped or crushed.

I doubled this icing recipe so I could ice the sides as well. But sticking to the recipe above will give you enough for a lovely amount ontop!

Combine the butter, icing sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Spread over the top of the cake (or the WHOLE cake if you doubled the recipe) and sprinkle with the chopped hazelnuts.

I would have to agree with Poh's title for this cake, it really is the best banana cake I've tasted! Enjoy!

Taz