For some reason I always feel that my fridge is not complete without a tub of sour cream in it. Problem is, I don’t cook things with sour cream very often except for cakes and the occasional lot of nachos and since I am a fridge nazi that doesn’t let anything go off, I find myself scrambling to make a batch of something, usually cake-like, that requires sour cream. I always try and bake with it as I know it produces a moist cake and today I had some bananas that looked like they needed eating.

It turns out these bananas actually didn’t need eating once I opened them up. Has anyone noticed that since the “banana crisis” in Australia subsided, bananas that look black on the outside turn out to be nowhere near super ripe as they look? They must be storing them differently or doing something different.

I found this recipe from the Taste site and it comes highly recommended. It was very nice but I think I’d change the icing to a cream cheese icing. Banana cake and cream cheese work so well together but I am biased as cream cheese icing is my favourite icing. I also added some cinammon which I also think goes so well with bananas. As I had just bought some new cookie cutter to use as fondant cutters for cupcakes, I made these as cupcakes instead of a large cake. I baked the larger cupcakes (in the swirl papers at the very bottom of the page) for 20 minutes and the smaller ones (in the white pleated cups) for 15 minutes.

The tops were made using my new cutters from Davis & Waddell bought in Myer where they have a ring of 12 shapes for $9 as they had a 30% off deal (usually $12.95 RRP). They’re pretty good value as I have seen cutters for a lot more per cutter.

Sour cream banana cake

Ingredients (serves 8 )

• 125g butter, softened
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 cup mashed banana (you will need 2 large, very ripe bananas)
• 2 1/4 cups self-raising flour
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 teaspoons of cinammon

• Icing

• 180g white chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease base and sides of a 7cm deep, 19cm square cake pan and line with baking paper.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each. Using a metal spoon, gently fold in sour cream and bananas. Sift flour and bicarbonate of soda over batter and gently fold through.
3. Spoon batter into cake pan. Smooth surface. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
4. Make icing Place chocolate and sour cream in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Heat, stirring constantly with a metal spoon, for 3 minutes or until smooth. Remove from heat. Stand for 10 minutes or until slightly thickened. Pour icing over cake, allowing it to drizzle down sides. Serve warm.

Notes & tips

Sour cream banana cake (without the icing) can be made a day in advance. Store at room temperature in an airtight container. To warm, place un-iced cake on a microwave-safe plate lined with baking paper. Heat, uncovered, on MEDIUM-LOWDEFROST (30%) for 4 to 6 minutes or until warm to the touch. Ice while warm.

Source

Super Food Ideas - May 2005 , Page 86

Recipe by Dixie Elliott

I was incredibly fearful that these would be hideous and not work as the “pastry” appeared to be a gooey mess that would be completely unworkable. Little did I know, that is what it is like! I followed Nigella Lawson’s recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess for Processor Danish Pastry (which she assures us, is how Danish pastry is made in Denmark nowadays). She did mention the words “gooey mess” but I thought that after being refrigerated overnight that it would “toughen” up as her next instructions are to roll it. I tried rolling it with a rolling pin where chaos ensued and the sticky gooey dough completely stuck to the rolling pin. Luckily, the high butter content meant that I could just spread and shape it with my hands and I made some Chocolate ones (using Nutella) and some Custard ones as I didn’t have the almonds or ricotta cheese in her recipes. I’ll try those next, and this ended up being one of the biggest baking successes notwithstanding how badly I thought that I’d thought they’d turn out! They are freakishly light and melt in the mouth, much more so than the croissant-y ones that you tend to find a bakeries. My husband thought that I had somehow stumbled upon the Krispy Kreme secret of sweet melt in the mouthness. I’m just glad they didn’t turn out as badly as I thought they would lol

Oh and I ran out of icing sugar after my mega cupcake making incident so I didn’t get to put the lovely white stripes over them-sorry!

Food Processor Danish Pastry from How To Be a Domestic Goddess

(makes 2 lots of pastry with 6-8 pastries in each lot. You can freeze 1 lot or keep it in the fridge for up to 4 days)

• 60ml warm water
• 125ml milk, at room temperature
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 250g white bread flour
• 7g (1 sachet) dried yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 25g caster sugar
• 250g unsalted butter, cold, cut into chunks

Pour the water and milk into a measuring jug and add the egg, beating with a fork to mix. Put aside. Put flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a food processor and give a quick whizz, just to mix. Add the cold slices of butter and process briefly so that the butter is cut up a little, though you still want visible chunks of at least 1cm. Empty the contents of the food processor into a large bowl and quickly add the contents of the jug. Fold the ingredients together, but don’t overdo it; expect to have a gooey mess with some butter lumps pebbled through it (she’s absolutely serious, this is a gooey mess!) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, put in the fridge and leave overnight or a few days.

To turn it into pastry, take it out of the fridge, let it get to room temperature and roll it out to a 50×50cm square (I couldn’t roll mine at all). Fold the dough square into thirds, like a business letter, turning it afterwards so that the closed fold is on your left, like the spine of a book. Roll out again to a 50cm square, repeating the steps above 3 times. Cut in half, wrap both pieces and store in the fridge for 30 minutes before using, or the freezer to store.

Add fillings like vanilla custard, nutella, chocolate or fruit

From How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Pictured at left are Paul’s macarons-coffee, praline, chocolate and pistachio. My sister got me hooked onto Macarons while visiting her in London. They’re different to coconut macaroons that you get in Australia and they’ve only really taken off within the last year or two in Australia with a couple of places selling them (Lindt cafe and Laurent). They’re crispy, chewy, cool and delicious all in one and if that sounds confusing, try one and see what I mean!

Having been lucky enough to visit Laduree Paris, I compared the two macarons and I found that Paul’s is generally superior for the ratio of filling to macaroon biscuit, hwoever Lauree has more adventuresome flavours (caramel and salt being a favourite but pistachio being my absolutely consistent favourite) whereas Paul’s generally has 4 flavours. Also if you happen to get a Paul’s macaron that doesn’t have enough filling, then its not as good.

As far as the Australian versions go, the Laurent cafe ones do not do the word macaron justice, they don’t have nearly enough filling with only a smear so the luxurious texture suffers. Lindt ones are very pretty and make a lovely gift and they are decent but just not as good as Paul’s or Laduree.

I’ve tried making these from Martha Stewart’s recipe and I wasn’t too impressed with the recipe. Only 1/3 of them survived and considering how pricey pistachios are here I was not a happy camper. Next time she should provide the tips that you need to ensure that they come out well and you don’t get a lot of wastage (maybe that’s how she remains so smug while others flounder following her recipes!). Here are some tips that I wholeheartedly agree with as I remade them with a slightly different recipe and 2/3 to 3/4 turned out well. Nigella Lawson has a recipe for Pistachio macaroons in How to be a Domestic Goddess that I will try next. After that, I may have to go to MA (Macarooners Anonymous).

Pistachio Macaroons

By Nigella Lawson from How To Be a Domestic Goddess

These are the world’s most elegant macaroons. The color alone, that waxy pale jade, perfectly matches the aromatic delicacy of their taste; and their nutty chewiness melts into the fragrant, soft paste with which they’re paired. Of all the recipes in this book, this is the one of which I think I’m most proud: biscuit bliss.

These are perfect at the end of dinner alongside some confectioner’s-sugar-dusted raspberries; or alone with coffee, gracefully piled on a plate or cake stand.

Ingredients
For the macaroons:

• 75 grams pistachios
• 125 grams icing sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 15grams caster sugar

For the buttercream:

• 55 grams pistachios
• 250 grams confectioners’ sugar
• 125 grams unsalted butter, softened
• 2 baking sheets, lined with parchment paper

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4

1. Grind the pistachios in a food processor along with the icing sugar (this stops them turning into an oily mess), until as fine as dust. Whisk the egg whites until fairly stiff, but not dry, sprinkle the sugar over and whisk until very stiff. Fold the whites into the pistachio-sugar dust, and combine gently. Pipe small rounds onto your lined baking sheet, using a plain 1 cm nozzle. Let them sit for about 10 minutes to form a skin. Then put in the oven and cook for 10-12 minutes: they should be set, but not dried out.
2. Remove from the oven and let cool, still on their sheets, while you get on with the filling. This is simple work: grind the nuts and confectioners’ sugar in the processoor as before; then cream the butter and continue creaming as you add the nut dust. Make sure you have a well-combined soft buttercream. Then simply sandwich the macaroons together.