Chocolate banana cupcakes with a chocolate cream frosting

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My friend Vicky made this chocolate banana loaf the other day with her ducks’ eggs. I’m not usually a fan of banana bread. I want to like it, ever since I read that Nigella says making banana bread fills your house with domestic fug, or some such. But I just don’t really like it. I’m not a fan of an overly banana taste in anything other than in a, you know, banana. But this looked different, thanks to the abundance of chocolate and cocoa in it and on it. And then I had a child off sick the other day and so we decided to make it together; but into cupcakes not a loaf. And it worked brilliantly.

As you will see in the comments below the actual recipe in BBC Good Food magazine, lots of people have modified the recipe to make it even healthier with less sugar, more bananas, honey etc. I am obedient so, as it was the first time I made it, I followed the recipe.

I used Isigny Creme Fraiche instead of ‘sour cream’ (it’s the same thing anyway isn’t it?) and I used Tesco’s Finest Cooking Milk Chocolate with 40% cocoa content which is fantastic, even if you do have to go to Tesco to buy it (stock up). I hate hate hate buttercream icing so this is great for me.

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My youngest didn’t like the topping so I left some clear for her which was convenient as, making it into cupcakes rather than one loaf, I didn’t really have enough frosting (if you want to cover all of them, make double of the topping).

You can top with a banana chip if you want. I make my own, using my dehydrator, but obviously you can just BUY THEM.

Update: I have since made these again using coconut oil instead of sunflower oil (v nice, you don’t really taste the coconut) and also half wholemeal flour plus half a teaspoon of baking powder. Just to make it more healthy. If anything, I think the cupcakes tasted better..and because I’m lazy, I’m reproducing the recipe, as I now use it (i.e. adapted) here for my reference..

for the cupcakes

100g coconut oil, or olive oil or butter

110g caster sugar

90g white self raising flour

85g wholemeal, plain flour

half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

half a teaspoon of baking powder

4 tablespoons of cocoa

100g chocolate chips – I use plain

175 very ripe banana (about two) – I weigh them with the skin on

3 medium eggs, two separated

50ml milk

For the topping (double this quantity if making cupcakes and you aim to ice the whole batch)

100g high cocoa content milk chocolate

100g creme fraiche/sour cream

a pinch of sea salt for real wowness

banana chips if desired

Line each cupcake mould with a case – this makes about 16 so you may need to cook in two batches.

Heat oven to 160C. Mix the sugar, flour, bicarb, cocoa and chocolate in a big bowl. Mash the bananas in another bowl and mix in two egg yolks plus one whole egg. To this, add the coconut oil/olive oil or butter and milk.

Beat the egg whites until stiff.

Add the banana mixture to the dry flour etc mixture, mixing well but not overmixing (I never understand why, what happens if you over mix it??). Stir in a bit of the egg white mixture to loosen it all up, then fold in the rest to keep the air in as much as possible.

Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for about 25 minutes – 30 mins. A skewer should come out clean, unless of course you hit a bit of melted chocolate chip.

Let them cool completely. In the meantime, melt the creme fraiche and chocolate together, in a bowl over simmering water, with the pinch of sea salt if desired. Then spread over cupcakes (if it’s really gloopy let it firm up a bit in the fridge first, but not too much). Top with a banana chip if you like.

 

 

 

The usefulness of a foam roller

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Fourteen years ago, after receiving some money for Christmas, I decided to put it to Really Good Use and hired myself a personal trainer.

Up til then, I thought PTs were for rich or famous people and, being neither, I thought it was a deeply selfish thing. But, it was some of the best use I’d ever put money to. I majorly lucked out with my first trainer, Donovan. He was brilliant. I got into the best shape of my life and he introduced me to exercises and pieces of equipment I’d never heard of but which were brilliant. Then the selfish bastard left to live in Australia.

He’s back now and over the border in Essex, but, sadly, a bit too far for me to travel to otherwise, believe me, I would.

But Donovan introduced me to the benefits of exercising on a  Swiss ball (until it was banned in the gym, he’d get me standing – yes standing – on it doing my weights), the Bosu, he’d have me lifting weights I never thought a girl could lift. And he introduced me to the foam roller.

Just Google ‘foam roller’. They are sold everywhere. Spend between about £10 and £20. You don’t need to spend more but do make sure you don’t buy them too cheap or else the foam won’t be dense enough and what you’ll be paying for is less foam, more air. You can also Google ‘exercises using a foam roller’.

I use mine for a few things – you can lie on it and roll up and down (with the foam roller across your body, like in the crucifix position) and massage your back. This hurts.

You can also lie across it and roll it up and down the outside of your thighs. This hurts a lot. I do lots of my pilates exercises lying with it down the length of my back in what I call the lamp-post position. This makes things like doing toe-taps that bit more difficult as you are in an unstable position.

But. Even if you don’t do any of those, a foam roller is great because you can keep it in the corner of your office and every hour or so, you can take three minutes away from your hunched-over the keyboard position and lie yourself on it – in the lamp-post position – down the length of your back and with your head resting on it.

And do nothing. Just lie there staring at the ceiling and let your shoulders unfurl and if you lift your hands up so that your hands are by your ears and your elbows poking out and just let the weight of your arms drop them down, you get an amazing stretch over the front of your chest.

Postscript: My friend and editor Kate wrote this piece in the Guardian last month, about foam rollers, which is really useful and has pictures. Although be prepared to be slightly depressed looking at pictures of Kate – mother of two – looking really gorgeous (very probably with no make up) and her super trim figure. I must go into the office more often with trays of doughnuts for her.

Lavenham Farmer’s Market

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When I lived in London, we used to go to the Islington Farmer’s Market, which was great. There was a man there who sold baby lettuce leaves by the bag, and his leaves were so tasty. They had real bite and flavour to them and were far removed from supermarket lettuce which melts on the tongue and tastes of not very much, so as to appeal to as many people as possible. You couldn’t move for Bugaboos (including our own) and it was all very north London, but it was fun and there was raw milk sold (something I really miss) and great bread (something I no longer have to miss now I make my own).

When we moved to Suffolk, it took us a while to find the Lavenham Farmer’s Market which is now my favourite farmer’s market of all time. It’s held once a month (the next one is this Sunday, 23rd, it’s held on the fourth Sunday of every month), not once a week like our London one. There is usually plenty of parking and there is always something unusual to find. It’s not huge, but it’s not small either. Each time I go I find something amazing and different and have the best chats with people, from those who grow their own heritage apples, to the honey man from The Beehouse Honey Co in Great Yeldham who told me all about his bees and how different ones had different personalities and we had a honey tasting, as sophisticated as any wine tasting.

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One month we were walking round when my eldest got a really itchy neck (she suffers from mild eczema) and I looked round and there was this stand selling natural products, called Honey bee Natural Beauty, which uses honey and beeswax from their own hives. It was very Neals Yard-esque and the products smelled amazing (you know how sometimes you find these natural products and they smell just like what they are, made up in someone’s kitchen? Well these aren’t like that. There’s an orange body lotion that smells well posh and proper and I am going to buy it next time). And I said to the man “Do you have anything for eczema?” and lo and behold, he produced something called “Vitamin A Cream for Eczema Prone Skin” which cost £9 and really helps (it doesn’t cure of course since no one knows what causes eczema, but in our battery of creams and lotions, this earns its place).

And I’ve met people there, from Slamseys Drinks, who sell amazing gin  with fantastic labels, like nothing you’d find anywhere else.

I always stock up on Edward’s Cordials (strawberry and mint is great for the summer and there’s a new flavour coming soon but I forgot what it is…).

If you’ve never been to Lavenham it’s well worth a look around. It’s bonkers. I think it has the highest number of listed buildings of anywhere in England, but I may have made that statistic up (oh the glorious freedom of blog posts, no need to check facts like in newspapers). Lavenham has some great art galleries and I go in there with my children and no-one gets sniffy (my children are amazingly appropriately behaved though, as I’ve taken them everywhere with me from a very young age). Although there is one shop that says “breakages must be paid for” so that shop doesn’t get my custom because who needs that shit?

Afterwards we sometimes go to Clare, which is another amazing little Suffolk village that has proper shops. We go to Cafe Clare there, (1 Well Lane) which is tiny and quaint and we always have great service and lovely food there. It’s not the Wolseley but a great place to get a cup of coffee and a sausage sandwich and they are always accommodating to our children (I’ve seen them let dogs in too if that is relevant to you).

You can then go for a walk at Clare County Park. If you go during the week, do check out the hardware store – Hudgies.

The Phoenix Comic

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My friend John-Paul Flintoff, who is married to one of my fabulous editors Harriet, (I’m not saying this to show off who I know, but because I think it’s so important to give credit to people, and I didn’t want to mention JP without mentioning Harriet because I actually know her a whole lot better) recently told me about The Phoenix Comic.

It’s great, he said. There are no ads, he said. Great writing, he said. There was a special offer on – first four copies free – so I thought I’d give it a go in a ‘what have I got to lose’ way.

The comic arrives by post every Friday in a big, colourful envelope, addressed to the child whose name you put on the subscription form. At first my eldest (my youngest has just started reading) wasn’t that enthralled. I admit I was disappointed. However, when the time came for the free subscription to end, I asked her if she’d like me to cancel it.

“Oh NO” she yelled, “I love it!” (Corpse talk is her favourite bit.) Now, every Friday, I get my copy of The Week, she gets her copy of The Phoenix and we are both heads down for an hour. Because not all reading is about books.

Pea Porridge, Bury St Edmunds

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Before anyone thinks I’ve gone into restaurant reviews, let me stop you right there. If I wrote reviews of food I ate out it would run to no more than a few sentences. It’s less that I am overly easily pleased (although I am fairly easily pleased), more that I run out of things to say about food. I either don’t like it, or I do. I don’t think I have a very sophisticated palate in that I can’t really tell if there is coriander missing in something.

I’m missing that gene.

Really the point of this is more a selfish one. In the same way that my blog now reminds me of things I like to eat and make, this will I hope be a useful repository of places I’ve been that I’ve liked. But it is nice to share good places you’ve been, no?

I don’t live in Bury St Edmunds, which I affectionately call Biddy St Edmunds as the proportion of old biddies (yes, yes, I will be one myself soon) seems to be quite high there and I often seem to have run-ins with them looking at me like I’m going to mug them or not locking the toilet doors in places and then accusing me of trying to burst in on them (“I didn’t lock the door because I was scared of being locked in” happened to me twice, in the space of 20 seconds two weeks ago).

But we don’t live far from there and we visit the Picture House there often, and love it. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to the Barbican cinema, which I used to frequent when I lived near the Barbican in London. Sometimes we escape to the pictures during the day.

This is when and where the proportion of old biddies is really high. Especially if you go on a Wednesday which is market day. Two weeks ago, whilst ‘queuing’ to go into the auditorium, one old biddy turned round and properly screamed when she saw me like that character in Catherine Tate.

The market in Bury is great btw.

We went yesterday and we – my partner and I – got told off for eating our popcorn too loudly by this really grumpy, rude old man. We weren’t, of course. But, for five seconds, we were the young, annoying people. It made our day. We saw Grand Budapest Hotel which we thought was fabulous and afterwards we went to Pea Porridge which is a bit out of the way in a residential bit. But still a very short walk from the centre.

I wanted to eat everything on the menu – really rare for me – and we really struggled to choose two things. I had two starters: grilled squid with black risotto rice, the remnants of which you see in the picture up there (no way am I taking pictures of my meals out like a nutcase, this is what was left). My ‘main’ was a starter of grilled venison heart in a salad with some walnuts. For pud I had poached quince with fromage frais and crumbled amaretti which was light and fresh and yummy. Prices, as you’ll see from the menu, aren’t ridiculous and you can have a shot of brandy or something hair-on-chesty, afterwards for under £3 which is super reasonable.

The bread was so good I almost stole some on my way out – an oil-encrusted focaccia. They carbonate their own water here to cut down on packaging and transportation costs. The espresso was spot on.

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It was all amazing. Easily the most memorable meal I’ve eaten out in years. This is not a posh formal restaurant, it’s in an old bakery but looks like it’s in two houses knocked together. It’s laid back, great service. Note that it’s not open every day.

I would thoroughly recommend it.

And that’s it.

There was a table of old biddies sitting next to us but their conversation was sprightly and fun. One uttered the great line of “we had a girl stay with us for a while in the attic”.

A totally wheat free cake: almond, pistachio and lime cake

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I only realised this was wheat free when I was half way through making it. I do eat wheat. Lots of it, but I realise not everyone does or can, so I hope this helps some of you.

Despite the lack of any sort of flour, this cake does rise quite a bit, thanks to the four eggs. And it feels light. But it’s packed with protein so it’s quite filling and certainly you don’t get that huge blood sugar crash after eating it. Which can only be a positive thing (I’m choosing to only see it as a positive thing).

So in essence this is a light, moist, delicious cake which I think you’ll find hard to overeat. It needs no adornment or accompaniment other than a cup of strong coffee or, for you English peeps, a cup of tea.

It’s from the Donna Hay magazine, incidentally, which is my favourite foodie magazine.

You need:

150g unsalted very soft butter

165g caster sugar

The finely grated zest of a lime (equivalent to one tablespoon but I never measure it)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

4 eggs, at room temperature

180g ground almonds

130g ground pistachios (I ground these myself in my electric grinder, stuff of five minutes)

Honey for drizzling a-top

What you do:

Oven to 160C.

Put the butter, sugar, lime rind and vanilla extract in an electric mixer and whisk for 10-12 minutes, until the mixture has turned pale and creamy. It’s a heck of a lot of mixing isn’t it? But there you go. Then add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the mixture as you go. This is the hardest bit.

Now take the bowl out of the mixer and manually, fold through the ground nuts. Spoon into a 2lb loaf tin which you have lined with baking parchment and bake for 1hr to 1 hr 10mins until a test comes out clean. Cool completely in the tin then spoon some honey over the top.

 

Blueberry and yoghurt loaf cake

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Ever since I started making my own yoghurt, I’ve looked out for recipes involving yoghurt. Prior to last year, I’d never used yoghurt in cakes. I’d used it, with much success, in pancakes, but cakes? No.

Last year I found an amazing recipe for a very plain, but none the less delicious, lemon yoghurt cake. I’m not reproducing that one here because although the actual cake was delicious, the topping it recommended, was not. Using yoghurt in a cake makes the cake really moist and light, making it a bit more ‘shop bought’ in texture, which sounds mad, but sometimes I do like the texture (if not the taste) of supermarket cakes.

This cake is a Donna Hay recipe. It’s light, easy, delicious, wonderful. And sometimes you need something easy, yet spirit lifting. Especially on a Monday. I hate Mondays. I find it so difficult to wrench myself from the bosom of my family and send my children out to school and me out to work. Cake makes it all better, and if it’s made of yoghurt and blueberries, that can’t be bad, can it?

You need:

150g unsalted butter, melted or very very soft.

220g caster sugar

2 eggs

140g thick plain yoghurt

Zest from a small lemon

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

225g self raising flour

125g blueberries

icing sugar to dust.

This is what you do:

Oven to 160C. Put the butter, sugar, eggs, yoghurt, lemon zest and vanilla in a bowl and whisk to combine (I use a food mixer with a whisk attachment but it’s fine to use a wooden spoon/hand whisk and some muscle). Now add the flour and whisk until well combined Gently fold through the blueberries and spoon into a lined loaf tin of about 22cm x 8cm x 7cm. Smooth the top and bake for about an hour, bit more if it’s still very moist. A cake tester should come out clean. Cool and dust with icing sugar.

Another favourite cake recipe that uses yoghurt in the icing is here and it’s delicious.

Posh “Pot Noodle”

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This isn’t of course, anything like pot noodle. I’m not even sure why I call it that other than, when there are left overs, I put it in a glass Weck jar/pot and it’s so easy to reheat and before you know it you have something ludicrously tasty and nutritious to eat.

My children love this. The original recipe calls for chilli (1 red, sliced), salad onions and pak choi. You can still add the former at the same time you add the star anise, if you wish, and the latter when I add the ‘veg’.

It’s wonderfully fragrant, really amazing smelling, the kind of soupy meal that feels like it’s doing good just by raising a bowl of it to your nose and sniffing it in. If you’re going out for a family day out/walk (or even, you know, by yourself) it’s great to make in advance, stick in the fridge, and within minutes of coming home you can have something to eat.

Its original name is Fragrant Chicken Hot Pot and it’s adapted from a Waitrose magazine recipe from last year.

Serves 4

2 teaspoons of vegetable oil

4-6 free range chicken thigh fillets (or still on the bone see note later) cut into chunks

2 garlic cloves, chopped

4 star anise

1 tablespoon of light brown muscovado sugar

500ml chicken stock

1 tablespoon of fish sauce

Some green veg: spinach or French beans, whatever you like: a big handful.

Two nests of Vermicelli or other noodles (or more than that if you want a more noodley experience)

This is what you do:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, then fry the chicken for about 10 minutes until browned.

If using whole thighs on the bone (see my note later) do this for the same amount of time but to make sure the chicken is cooked simmer the actual soup for longer than the ten minutes recommended below.

Now stir in the garlic, star anise (and chilli if using). Fry for a couple of minutes, then add the sugar and stir around for a minute or so until melted.

Now add the stock and fish sauce, cover the pan and simmer for ten minutes – fifteen if you’re using chicken thighs on the bone.

Whilst this is simmering, prepare the noodles according to your instructions. The vermicelli nests I use just have to sit in boiling water for five minutes, so are simplicity itself.

Now add any veg you are using and cook for a further 2-3 minutes, depending on what you are using. Taste and add more seasoning if needed (I never need to). Serve! It’s delicious. Any left overs can be stored in the fridge for a day or two and just reheated well making for a really lovely, quick, meal.

A note about the chicken. Ready filleted chicken thighs make this more expensive, but easier. I tend to use thighs on the bone with the skin on. You could either skin and fillet them before cooking or, what I do, is just take the skin off (otherwise it makes the dish way too fatty) and cook the thighs on the bone. I think it also adds to the flavour. Then when cooked, I take the chicken out of the stock (whilst the veg are cooking, say) and take off the meat whilst trying to not scald my fingers. This is also a good way to make sure the chicken is cooked as chicken thighs vary in size and you need to be sensible.

Because I make this to last over two meals, I can get away with just taking off the outer meat to get a meal ‘for now’ and then when the meat has cooled down, I strip it all off the bone, add it to the broth and then store ready to go, like that, in the fridge.

The bank of Bankaroo.

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I learned to handle cash at a very young age. The day after my seventh birthday, my parents opened a cafe on Bayswater Road and from then on, almost every weekend, and holidays were spent working there.  I had to learn fast to add up in my head, work out change, etc. Most importantly of all, I learned to handle actual money. Which children increasingly do not these days and what I’m about to write isn’t going to help in one way, but will in another.

I kept all of my cash at home in a black and gold money box. Gosh I still must have it somewherel anything that was bought was paid for in cash. Although I grew up with an excellent head for money, I must point out that I also went quite, quite bonkers as soon as I turned 18 and at one point, I had 22 credit/store cards in a concertina plastic wallet thing that would stretch down to the floor. My parents had never, ever dealt in plastic and still don’t, and I guess the excitement, the glamour, the forbidden-ness of credit cards completely got to me for a while and I had every card you can imagine. I also got into debt, which only my older, wiser, been-there-done-that, friend Joanna pulled me out of by marching me to the building society and making me take out my savings, making me pay all my cards off and making me cut them all up – bar one.

I realised my children didn’t have quite the same grasp on where money came from, when my eldest was small and she said to me one day (when I said I didn’t have the money for something)  “go to the supermarket and get some, as they give you cash back”. Having never seen me work for actual money handed over, her grasp on ‘work = money’ wasn’t quite the same as mine was. Plus there’s something about seeing your parents work, very hard, physically, for sometimes 18 hours a day, as my parents did to make you really understand about how money is earned. I think this is why I still feel guilty – even though I’ve worked and earned my own money, properly, since I was 18 years old – when I spend money.

I don’t give my children pocket money. Sure, I did, for a while but now I don’t. They have money that goes into various accounts on standing orders. But they don’t need (much) cash yet. But when they are given birthday or Christmas money I always give them the option of ‘save or spend’, all of it or some of it. It is, after all, their money. The eldest realised, very early on, that saving money meant she could buy something bigger further along the line. The youngest is still at that stage where she thinks going into a shop means you are contractually obliged to buy something. But even she is learning that one big thing may sometimes be better than 120  pieces of tat. Either way, it’s a lesson they have to learn.

That’s not the problem. The problem is this: we are so unused to handling cash now that it almost seems like pretend money. So whilst the eldest understands very much about money and what it means, our youngest is still too young to grasp that that fiver is real. She wants to keep it in her multicoloured sequinned purse but invariably, it gets lost. And even if it’s kept safe, that purse is never with them when they see something they like.

What to do.

This is when my friend Sandra, who runs a sling company (link here because she loves a plug, I bought my Moby wrap from her, which is one the best baby things I ever bought) told me about an app called Bankaroo.

Bankaroo is a virtual bank for children. It works like this. You start up accounts for them (by accounts I simply mean you put their name into the app, or a pretend name, it doesn’t matter, it’s simply for your records). Then you put in something like “five pounds from grandma for M’s birthday”. Then YOU, the parent, keep the money. When said child says “but I really want to buy that” you check their account, see how much money is ‘in there’, and then if they want to buy it you can either pay for it on your credit card or, if you have actual, you know, CASH, on you, hand it to them so they can pay for it and learn about change. You can then deduct the (virtual) money from their account so you can then put “M spent £2.50 on a crappy piece of plastic” and the total will go down accordingly.

It’s really simple but also genius as it helps children manage money, albeit with your help. Also if children do actually have the money and really, really want something (obviously suitable), I think they should be allowed the choice to buy it.

 

A nice healthy lunch: aubergines, tomatoes, feta

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This is the sort of lunch that can expand to fit anything from 2-4 people on the quantities below. And it’s easy to augment it to feed even more. Quantities are fast and loose.

1 aubergine, sliced, brushed with olive oil and griddled

A good handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

100g or so of feta, crumbled

A few basil leaves, torn or chopped

A tablespoon/glug of extra virgin olive oil

A handful of pine nuts, dry fried for a few minutes in a frying pan

All I do is have everything at room temperature (if you haven’t just cooked the aubergines), lay the aubergine slices on a big plate, and then just scatter the other ingredients on top. Easy and delicious. If it’s hot outside and you have time, put the olive oil over the tomatoes, season and scatter the basil atop and leave out in the sun (away from elks and birds) for half an hour.

Yum.