STUDIO BAKE DAY

I may have neglected to mention that I've moved into the wonderful little creative hub that is the Drawn in Bristol illustration studio in Stokes Croft (pictures to follow, as soon as I can find room in my bag for my camera!), nestled inside Hamilton House (a big melting-pot inhabited by lots of talented and creative artists, designers, musicians and filmmakers).

One of the lovely ladies on my floor initiated a Bake Day as incentive for her to leave the house and do some work on a Friday.  Well, today the oven gloves were passed over to me, so I thought I'd share a recipe with you (I may have had a helping hand from the Asda mag).

1) Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius (I couldn't find the little circular symbol).

2) Beat the eggs and sugar together with an electric whisk for around five minutes, or until the mixture has a thick but light consistency.

3) Mix in the mashed bananas (I used a mixture of slightly spotty, overly-ripe bananas and just-right bananas so that the loaf was flavoursome, but not too over-powering), milk, honey and vanilla extract.

4) Sift in the flour*, cinnamon, ground ginger and baking powder until just combined.

5) Stir in a handful of chocolate chips.

6) Spoon the mixture in a non-stick loaf tin and place in the oven on the middle shelf to bake for one hour, until the loaf is golden brown on top.

7) Put the loaf on a wire rack to cool it down.

8) Enjoy with a nice hot cup of tea.

*The recipe actually specified that the wholemeal flour should be plain, and not self-raising, but I bought the wrong type, and therefore also abandoned the bicarbonate of soda.  It didn't rise terribly well (none of my loaves do), but was perfectly delicious and generous in size!

Also, I was reminded of this today, and thought I would share it with you.

yes please

This one goes out to Helen, who loves to bake and Ella, who like me, loves anything with a hint of ginger.  More of a winter warmer, I suppose, but so easy to make that you don't really have an excuse!

To make one batch of delightfully spicy* ginger cookies, you will need:

5oz Self Raising Flour

2oz Butter

2 Tsp Ground Ginger

1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon

2 Tbsp Caster Sugar

2 Tbsp Golden Syrup

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C / 375°F / Gas Mark 5

2. Grease and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper

3. Sift together all of the dry ingredients

4. Heat the butter and syrup together in a pan until melted

5. Combine the wet and dry mixtures until a soft dough forms

(Add more flour if sticky)

6. Form small balls of dough with your hands and place them on the baking trays, allowing space for growth (they get big)

7. Flatten them slightly with the base of a spoon and add a tiny sprinkle of caster sugar

8. Bake in the oven for twenty minutes, or until golden

9. Allow to cool and enjoy!

Super tasty fresh from the oven.  They probably make a fine accompaniment to a cup of tea.

* Word of warning, I would be less generous with the ginger.  Mine were H-O-T.

brekkie to go

I've started compiling a big chunky list of things I want to do in 2010 (inspired by the great hulaseventy), which I intend to publish at some point.  My mum and I delight in collecting free recipe mags from supermarkets and tearing them out and sticking them in a book.  This is usually about as far as my culinary pursuits go.  However, I have endeavored, as part of my rapidly evolving list, to try at least fifteen recipes from my stash over the next three hundred and thirty two days of the year.  I have Asda to thank for this one.  Very yummy indeed, and quite handy.

Ingredients

175g butter

3tbsp golden syrup

100g soft brown sugar

3tbsp lemon juice

250g rolled oats

25g flaked almonds

2tbsp sesame seeds

50g raisins

and a sprinkling of cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 160C/Gas Mark 3.  Grease and line at deep cake tin (or whatever you can find) with baking paper.  Put the butter, golden syrup, sugar and lemon juice in a pan and stir over a low heat until melted.  Mix the oats, flaked almonds, sesame seeds, raisins and cinnamon in a bowl.  Pour the melted mixture into the bowl and combine until covered.  Press into the cake tin with a fork until even and bake in the oven for about twenty five minutes.  Remove and allow to cool (I didn't realise that the flapjack mix doesn't firm until it has cooled and incidentally kept shoving it back in the oven.  Trust physics).  Cut into bars or squares and enjoy!