Banana Bundt Cake with Rum Icing

This is the best banana cake I've ever made. It's seriously moist and delicious and will be making its way into my repertoire for whenever I have some over ripe bananas to use up. It's easy to make and looks stunning with very little effort. This is definitely my favourite of the two bundts I made this weekend.

The banana flavour is very pronounced (I did use 4 of them!) and, when combined with the sour cream, the cake becomes tender and moist with a soft crumb. I found the original recipe here on Cooks.com but as with the last recipe, there were some problems. The method neglects to mention some of the listed ingredients which is kind of unhelpful! Thankfully, I know how to make a cake and could work out what I needed to do.

I've typed the recipe here as I made it and have converted to metric as usual. I really recommend this cake even if you don't have a bundt pan, I think it would work well in a few loaf tins or maybe even a big batch of cupcakes! The rum icing was amazing. It was the perfect accompaniment to this cake and was so easy to make too.

Ingredients
115g butter
340g sugar
3 or 4 over ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
220g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
120ml (a small pot) sour cream
For the icing
300g icing sugar
2-3 tbsp hot water
3 tsp rum (to taste)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and grease an 8 cup bundt pan.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
Add the eggs and bananas and mix well.
Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl.
Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and fold in. Finally, stir through the sour cream.
Pur the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes before turning the cake onto a wire rack to cool.
For the icing, combine the sugar, rum and water into a large bowl and blend until it's spreadable. Pour over the top of the cake and allow it to drip down the sides.

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Cinnamon Bun Bundt Cake

Wow, it's been a long time since I updated. I've been settling into a new job and also trying to set up a business (more details of that to come!). It's all been exciting but somewhat disturbing to my blogging and baking! I spent Sunday baking cakes in my new bundt pan and they're the first things I've baked for ages!

I've been eyeing up bundt cakes for some years. They feature on American baking blogs regularly and I've always been interested in them. I got my first bundt pan (8 cup) from Lidl a couple of weeks ago and have only just got the time to try it out.

I did some searching for recipes that use my size of pan (often bundt pans have a larger 10 or 12 cup capacity) and found a couple that I wanted to try. So I made them both. I'll start with the Cinnamon Bun Bundt to carry on the theme from my last post.

I found the recipe for this cake here at Food for Laughter. I'm posting it here with metric measures as usual and how I made it. There were a couple of issues with the original recipe so here is my version

Ingredients
220g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
150ml milk
85g butter
4 tbsp sugar
3 eggs

For the glaze
135g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
120ml water
50g butter

Method
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat a bundt pan with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
Heat the milk, butter and sugar in a pan on a medium heat just until the butter is melted, stirring constantly.
Add the eggs and the milk mixture to the flour mixture, and beat well.
Pour the batter into the bundt pan, and bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then invert onto a serving plate.
To make the glaze; heat the sugar, cinnamon, water and butter in a saucepan until the butter has melted and the sugar disolved. Pour over the still warm cake and, using a pastry brush, make sure the entire cake is covered with the glaze.
Serve warm with some extra syrup poured over.

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Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon is such an amazing spice. It's warming and delicious and when heated, it fills the room with the scent of winter. It pairs wonderfully with all kinds of things like apples, Morrocan tagines and pumpkin pies. It can also shine all by itself (well with plenty of sugar and butter to enrich our lives) in these delicious cinnamon rolls.

The soft yeast dough bakes with a lovely crust in top and a soft and spiced centre. The rolls are delicious warm and at room temperature. They even last a few days too (assuming they're not all scoffed within moments of icing). They can be reheated in the oven to restore freshness too if necessary.

This recipe from The Pioneer Woman came highly recommended. I wasn't sure whether to go ahead and make the whole batch but I'm glad I did. Just make sure you have plenty of people to give these away too else you may have to be lifted from your house with a crane. Seriously. These are high calorie treats and they are so delicious. I wouldn't make these every week - not least because they take all day to make but they are really fun to make and easy too.

I decided to make a tutorial for these as the process is quite long to start with. It's mostly hands off time until the dough is ready then it's a quick turn around of the buns, a half hour wait for the dough to rise again and then a blast in the oven for 15 minutes. Brilliant.

As usual, the recipe has been changed into metric measures and written how I made them.

Ingredients
2 pints Whole Milk
230ml Vegetable Oil
200g Sugar
2 sachets Active Dry Yeast
880g (Plus 110g Separated) All-purpose Flour
1 heaping tsp) Baking Powder
1 scant tsp Baking Soda
1 tbsp Salt
Plenty Of Melted Butter
400g Sugar
Generous Sprinkling Of Cinnamon

Method
Put the milk into a large pan (I used a pressure cooker pan) and mix in the oil and sugar. Heat gently until it's just before boiling (this is called "Scalding") and then switch off the heat. Leave the milk mixture to cool for 45 minutes to and hour or until it is lukewarm. Sprinkle over the 2 sachets of yeast and let that sit for a minute or two.
Next, add the 880g of flour to the milk and stir it all together (I needed Al to help with this because I'm weak. Cover (I used a tea towel) and let it sit for an hour.
Now add the remaining 110g flour, the baking powder and soda and the salt and mix together again.
Divide the dough in half. Flour your kitchen counter and roll the dough into a long rectangle.
Drizzle melted butter over the dough (don't be frugal!) and spread it out a bit with a pastry brush. top with a generous cup of sugar and plenty of cinnamon.


Roll the dough into a a tight sausage (along the long side) and seal the edge with more butter.


Slice the dough into equal rounds about an inch thick. Brush 4 pans with a bit of melted butter and lay the sliced rolls into the pans.


Leave the buns to prove for 20-30 minutes, until the double in size. Top tip: If your house isn't warm enough, put the pans into a cold oven with a tray of hot water underneath. The steam creates the perfect atmosphere to prove.

Once the rolls have doubled in size, place in a preheated oven 180C for 15 minutes or until golden brown.


Frost while still warm so the the icing melts into the rolls.

I used the other half of the dough the following day and kept it in the fridge until I was ready to use it. You can do both batches in one day or you can store the dough in the fridge. Do punch it down if it rises too much in the fridge. It'll be fine.

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Vegan Month comes to a close...

So, February has come to an end and so has Vegan Month. I'd like to first say thank you to Jhon and Chrissie for their support and input. I'd like to welcome new readers too, there have been quite a few of you! Thanks for all the comments that have been left and thank you for all being interested!

There are things I didn't get a chance to make and places I didn't get a chance to go but I'll get around to them soon. I found new things to love, and new challenges as well as new friends. It couldn't have gone better!

So, we're back to "normal" here and I'll get on with posting some treats as soon as I can (some vegan, some not). I'm so pleased with how this feature month went that I'm already thinking about what to do next time! Your suggestions are welcome.

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