Saturday, January 9, 2010

What is it?

It's moist, has a lovely texture and it rose like the morning sun. It's a bloody beautiful Banana Cake and this is how I did it...
An elderly neighbour gave me a very old bowl from a sunbeam mixmaster that had given up the ghost after a 20yr life span. It is my favourite mixing bowl along with the other dozen or so different makes and sizes I have collected from garage sales, fetes, markets and op shops. They are just great for baking. I put the size needed for the mixture straight on the hot plate with a very low heat. I can't understand why the dumb baskets who design these great mixmasters don't think of bottom heat when they make them. Just a little bit of heat and with an on off switch. Softening, melting down or creaming butter & sugar would then be a bit of a breeze. They need more women on the job...
OK enough yibber yabber, grab 150grams of a decent margarine or butter and chuck it into your warm bowl on the hotplate with 3/4 cup of sugar. Let it melt a bit and it doesn't matter if you wander off to put a load of washing on or have a mag on the dog and bone to your bloodblister. It won't burn or get wrecked...it will just melt. I've got an old sunbeam hand mixer I bought at a Country Women's Association garage sale for $2.00 and yes it also has dough hooks. I use it all the time it's my favourite one. The other 6 or 7 favourite ones are on standby in the kitchen cupboard. They all work and I have not paid more than $10 for the lot. You could call me an Op Shop-a-holic. The CWA $2.00 hand mixer fits perfectly into the old sunbeam mixmaster bowl with excellent balance and won't topple over flying bits of cake mix that stick on your just washed and ironed posh kitchen curtains. Of course you still have to operate it by hand you Galah. I haven't quite sussed that one out yet but I'm working on it. Now the butter and sugar has melted pretty good give it a good beating until sugar granules are pretty well dissolved. Break two good size cackle berries or three small ones into a jug and throw the egg shells out onto your compost heap. If you haven't got a compost heap...start one now...you will thank yourself later on. Tip one egg at the time into the butter and sugar and keep beating. The idea is for good blending. Now the bananas...When you are visiting a green grocer, supermarket or market and you see a bag of bananas going for a good price but looking a bit past their best buy date...grab a couple of bags, take them home, peel and wrap in clingwrap. Four large or six medium and freeze. Congratulations...A few squishy bananas in the freezer is a good move toward great housekeeping.