Banana cake with walnuts

This recipe is an update of previous ones. The process of making is a lot more work but the reward is a yummy, fluffy loaf of banana that isn't too sweet or choc a bloc with distracting/gummy bits of banana, nuts and whatever you care to put in it.

As a mildly sweet loaf, it is good to be eaten as lunch with a bit of salted butter or salted caramel spread. I ate the muffins, made with the excess batter, on its own but hubby likes to jazz up his food quite a bit hence the spreads.

This is the yummiest recipe among my many banana cake recipes. 

Makes one 8 x 3 loaf

Ingredients: 

Flour mix A : 

160g white flour

40g wholemeal flour

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

Yoke base B:

150g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

50g brown or castor sugar

1 pinch of salt (or sea salt flakes)

4 yolks

2 medium bananas, mashed

extras:

1 handful toasted walnuts, smashed to smithereens

½ handful of high cocoa content  chocolate nibs (optional)

Meringue C:

4 egg whites

50g castor sugar

Method:

Prepare a 8x3x2 inch non stick pan. If using a normal pan, grease and dust.

Sieve flours and set aside.

Whisk butter until it turns pale.

Whisk in sugar and salt.

Add yolks , one at a time, until the batter looks homogenous.

Whisk in mashed banana, walnuts and chocolate, one component at a time.

Whisk in prepared flours, in 3 or 4 portions.

Separately, whisk the  egg whites until coarse foam forms.

In a steady stream, whisk in the castor sugar until whites is about to  stiff peaks.

Note: Stop whisking when stiff peaks form or else the meringue will appear dry and hard to fold.

At this stage, preheat the oven to 180C, with a low rack.

Scoop ⅓ of the meringue into the yolk batter and folk to loosen the batter.

Fold in the rest of the meringue until batter is homogenous.

Expect the batter to be thick but light in texture.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, leaving 1-2 cm clearance from the top.

Any excess, transfer to a muffin tin.

Bake in the preheated oven at 180C for 30 minutes until top is tanned and skewer pierced into the center of the loaf comes out clean (sans melted chocolate)

Cool on a rake. When the pan is cool to the touch, remove the cake to cool further.

 

Walnut sandies

Yearn for a crunchy cookie ? Then try this !

While it is true that sandie cookies  are synonymous with pecans, I find the walnut is  the next best substitute. Both nuts are light with a nice crunch, but the plus point is that  raw walnuts  is way cheaper than pecans .

Everything here was done in 30 minutes. It was quite a non event that I thought something was wrong. Well, all's fine if you can tolerate 'artisan shaped' cookies. It would have been better to shape the cookies by hand but I was not in the mood for greasy hands, thus the piping.

Note : If you prefer to shape the cookies by hand,  increase flour by another 5%.

Makes 36 walnut sandies.

Ingredients  :

100g unsalted butter,softened

1/2 cup icing sugar,sieved

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp fine salt

1 cup plain flour

1/2 chopped walnut, toasted and cooled

Method :

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease baking trays generously. ( I omitted the grease paper )

Whisk, on high speed, butter and sugar until light and creamy, about 1 minute.

Add vanilla, salt and whisk again.

Sieve flour over butter mix and whisk until just combined.

Stir and fold in chopped nuts.

Transfer batter to a piping bag. Pipe batter, about the size of a 10cents coin. Leave 1 inch space in between cookies.

Bake at 180C for 14-15 minutes.

Jiggle the tray gently  to dislodge the cookies ( if paper is omitted ) and cool well before storing.

Of banana walnut bread and delayed gratification

Compared to the anticipation of homemade bread, I prefer the instant gratification derived from  all things that can be churned out with a flick of the magic whisk.

Delayed gratification,  experts said,  is the hallmark of the intelligent.  Let's just say I belong to the majority of the population, and like many  in the pursuit of instant gratification, are responsible for bringing a different kind of dimension in life.

Understandably,  many of life's good things demand fuss and waiting upon. Especially the problem of having to wait  before  a lovely loaf of bread is ready and even then, one doesn't plunge his head into a hot loaf, does he ?

All inconvenience was  forgotten  when the waft of fresh banana bread filled the house. At times like this,  store bought banana walnut bread pales in comparison  and yes,  I concede, the waiting was worth it.

Makes one banana walnut loaf.

Water roux :

20 g bread flour

100g plain water

In a little cooking pot, stir bread flour in water and cook until the temperature reaches 65 C. Roux should congeal to porridge consistency, leaving trails with a whisk.

Remove pot from heat.

Set aside 80g of the roux and leave to cool.

Main bread ingredients:

250g bread flour

3 Tsp  milk powder

80g Tang Zhong / water roux

100 ml warm water

4g salt

25g sugar

5g dry yeast

22g butter

Condiments :

1 handful of  toasted, coarsely chopped walnuts

1 Delmonte banana coarsely cut to bite size

Combine dry ( main bread ) ingredients, roux, water, butter and knead for about 20 minutes until dough is elastic and smooth.  Add  walnuts and 1/2 of the bananas 15 minutes into the kneading.

Leave dough to proof  in a warm place, covered , for 1 hour. If using a bread machine as I did, set machine to dough cycle and retrieve the proofed dough after 1.5 hours.

On a lightly floured surface, tease and stretch proofed dough to an oblong, about 2  hand span long and 1  hand span wide.

Scatter remaining 1/2 of the cut bananas . Roll up the dough tightly , like a Swiss roll, and transfer to an dusted bread pan.

Proof dough for another 1 hour. Brush dough with milk just before baking.  Bake bread at 180C for 30 minutes.  Or, for folks like me who used the bread machine, let it proof the second time in the machine for an hour. Finally set machine to bake cycle.

Remove bread from pan and cool thoroughly before serving.