Banana Date Chocolate Chip Streusel Coffee Cake

Firstly, I should apologise for not blogging lately. I have realised it has been one year since my last post!!!

Thanks to some special guests that came to visit from London today, and some very ripe bananas crying out to be eaten in my fruit bowl...the result was this super yummy banana, date, choc chip struesel cake. Oh and of course, what brought it all together was the recipe - I should thank Elizabeth from FreeFoodBoston who originally found and adapted Megan's who found it at Epicurious. I should add, I did deviate from Elizabeth's and Megan's adaptation.

The original recipe uses walnuts in the struesel, however as I did not have any walnuts in my usually well stocked pantry, I did by great chance have some fresh dates in my fridge — Totally lucky! Perhaps one day I'll try the walnut version, but for the time being this cake is a keeper!

I also used less chocolate chips and self-raising flour instead of the whole wheat flour.

However, I should note that this recipe is quite sweet — the natural sweetness of the dates combined with sugar makes it quite rich. If you are wanting to use dates, but don't have such a sweet tooth, I would suggest you reduce the quantity of sugar used to 1/2 cup where it says 2/3 cup.

Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel
adapted from Elizabeth at FreeFoodBoston
Makes 12 servings

• 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips - (I used 1 cup)
  
• 2/3 cup (packed) brown sugar (use 1/2 cup if making with dates)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts - (I used about 4 large fresh dates instead)
  
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour - (I used self-raising flour)
  
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda - (I didn't use this)
  
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup (packed) brown sugar (use 1/2 cup if making with dates)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/3 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 large)
• 3 tablespoons milk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Butter and flour 8x8x2-inch metal baking pan.
   
2. Stir chocolate chips, 2/3 c. brown sugar, walnuts or dates, and cinnamon in small bowl until well blended; set streusel aside.
3. Combine flour, baking soda (if using Self Raising flour I guess you can leave this out), baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat 2/3 c. brown sugar, room temperature butter, and egg in large bowl until fluffy.
   
4. Beat in mashed bananas and milk. Add dry ingredients and blend well.
5. Spread half of batter (about 2 cups) in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle with half of streusel. Repeat with remaining batter and streusel.
   
6. Bake coffee cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool coffee cake in pan on rack.
   

Sweet Coconut Pastry Dessert (Hindistan Cevizli Tatli)

Post to follow soon...

Easy Apple Pie Cake (Elmali Turta)

Found this recipe off the Yemek Gunlugum website and tweaked it a little by adding some walnuts into the cake mixture.

Another great recipe which can be made on short notice, because most of the ingredients would be on hand. The only part where you might need a little patience is layering the apples on top, but it's well worth it.


Ingredients

For the cake:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup oil
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1 teaspoon vanillin powder
  
• Handful of roughly crushed walnuts (optional)
  

For the topping

• 2-3 apples, peeled and sliced thinly
• icing sugar to decorate
  

Method

1. To make the cake, mix all the ingredients together until well combined. (Add the walnuts after all the other ingredients are combined so mixing is easier)
2. Preheat your oven to 175 degrees and empty the mixture into your greased cake tin.
3. To layer up the apples, start from the side of your cake tin and work towards the centre. There is a way to ensure they don't sink into the cake mixture, set aside some plain flour in a small bowl, dip the bottom of the apple slice in some plain flour and push the floured side down onto the cake mixture at an angle.
   
4. Bake your cake for about 30-35 minutes. May require more or less time according to your oven but I usually let it brown on top and test with a skewer. If the skewer comes out clean your cake is ready.
   
5. When your cake has cooled down a little, sprinkle some icing sugar for decoration. If you have left over cake, just warm it up the microwave before serving.
   

Chocolate Baby Cupcakes

This is the best chocolate home made cake recipe that I have come across. I absolutely love this recipe because it's so easy and I usually have the ingredients on hand to make it on short notice. The result is a cake that is moist and looks and tastes like those packet betty crocker mixes. You can also use the same recipe to make these cute little cupcakes.

What's even easier is that I use Nutella for my icing/topping. It tastes great and doesn't require any mixing! You could leave the icing out if you prefer and just dust the cakes with a little with icing sugar when serving.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups plain flour (you can use self raising flour, just cut out the bicarb soda)
  
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk
  
• 2 eggs
• 125g butter, melted, cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanillin sugar

Topping

• Nutella/Chocalate Ganache or the usual chocolate butter icing.
  
• Sprinkles

Method

• Preheat oven and grease muffin tins. I usually use those mini patty cases and just spray some canola oil in them.
• Sift flour, bicarb soda and cocoa into a bowl. Add in the sugar and vanillin sugar.
  
• In a seperate bowl or jug, combine the milk/buttermilk, eggs and melted butter.
• Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and pour in your wet mix.
• Use an electric mixer, first beat on low until the mixture is combined. Then increase the speed and beat the mixture until it looks creamy (a bit like mousse).
• Pour mixture into cake pan or into muffin tins and bake at 170 degrees for about 35 minutes if your baking a cake and about 15 minutes if your making the mini muffins.
  
• In either case I usually test to see if they are done by interting a knife to see if it comes out clean.
• Cool the cakes on a wire rack then ice with your preffered topping.
  

Snowflake Coconut Balls

Ingredients

• 3 cups dessicated coconut
• 1 cup milk powder
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 200ml thickened cream

Method

• Mix all the ingredients together to form a soft dough.
  
• Make little balls and dip into some coconut
• Refrigerate until it is firm (a few hours).
  

Pink Birthday Cake for Princess

I baked a simple butter cake (marble) for my princess. Decorated it with some pink "Krem Santi" - you can pick it up from the local turkish grocer. It is the equivalent of pink whipped cream. I am sure you can achevie the same outcome by whipping up some cream and adding food colouring to it. Never tried it but I am sure it's possible.

I was very proud of the decoration though. It was a joint effort between, myself, hubby and aunty Nin and some very new icing piping equipment we picked up recently. Oh I made the little candy princess by the way - Not! I bought them from woolies. Certianly adds a semi professional touch to the cake.

Butter cake recipe is listed below, it was taken from the huggies website:

Ingredients:

These quantities make one standard cake.

• 125grams of softened butter
• 2/3 cup of caster sugar
• 2 eggs (lightly beaten)
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 2 cups SR Flour
• 2/3 cup milk

Method:

• Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy
• Add eggs and Vanilla Essence (Beat until well mixed)
• Add small amounts of flour and milk until well mixed in together.
• Place into a lined and greased tin and cook for 45mins in an oven pre-heated to 180C.
• Test with a skewer to ensure that it is cooked.

Variations:

• Chocolate cake
  To turn this recipe into a chocolate cake add 2tbs of cocoa and 2tbs of milk to the mixture and beat through.
• Marble Cake
  Separate mixture into 3 equal parts in different bowls.
  Add a couple of drops of pink food colouring to one part.
  Add 1tbs of cocoa and 1tbs of milk to one part.
  Now spoon the different mixtures into the tin, one spoonful at a time, so that the colours alternate. To finish off the effect use a knife or skewer and swirl the colours together.

Pink Love-Heart Cake

So Ninny has landed herself a full time job. Congratulations!! Her recent success deserved a cake, so I promised Ninny I would bake her a pink cake. I had to try out my newly purchased Love Heart Cake Pan, Pink Food Colouring and ready to roll ready icing....Someone had to be the guinea pig.

To save time, I picked up a ready made cake mix (chocolate), baked that, slapped the ready made icing on top which I had coloured with pink icing a few days ago and this is what I got. Not too bad for a first timer ey? Although the cake didn't look that smooth, most likely because I rushed it - but overall it looked pretty good for my first attempt.

Tahini Cookies

I had some Tahini left in the fridge that was annoying me, I came across this recipe from the Devletsah website and it was so simple I had to try it. These cookies are the melt in your mouth type, I enjoyed eating them because they don't contain any butter/margarine, so it seemed a little healthier than the usual shortbread type cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Tahini (sesame seed paste)
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 25g Vanillin Sugar
• 1 cup walnut pieces (cut into smaller chunks)
• 4.5 cups plain flour

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients together and form a soft dough

2. Rest the dough for 10 minutes under a wet tea towel

3. Divide dough into small balls, roll and flatten

4. Place cookies on a greased tray and cook in the oven for about 30 minutes. Until it looks golden brown

5. Dust with icing sugar whilst warm.