I walked in to my office this morning and found a cake tin sitting on my desk. I haven't seen the results of what came out of it yet, but apparently the polar bear it was used for made a little boy very happy on his 4th birthday! Funny really, as last night I was in a baking mood myself and made this!
Bread has always seemed a bit of a chore to me, but having been inspired (along with thousands of others) by the Great British Bake Off, I've recently discovered a few recipes that are so simple and straightforward to make as there's no yeast involved, and no sitting around waiting for the dough to rise. Perfect when you haven’t got a huge amount of time! This one was made with Allinson flour (they're part of Conservation Grade) so I know it's been produced on farms that provide wildlife habitat.
Birthdays are always a good excuse to get baking, but I often find myself just pottering about in the kitchen, whisk in hand and covered in flour, for no better reason than wanting to create something to share with others. I find homemade is cheaper and so much more satisfying than shop-bought, and the great benefit is that you know precisely what's gone into making it when you do it yourself from scratch. No standing in the aisle at the supermarket for ages trying to read a list of ingredients - by the time I've done that I could be half way through making my own!
After a very busy week last week with not much time spent at home, I had a bunch of very brown bananas that I'd not got round to eating. Instead of chucking them in the compost it seemed a good excuse to knock together a banana loaf. The friends who received it as a thank you present were very appreciative! I've long been a stickler for Fairtrade bananas (although I find I have to go to specific places to avoid buying them in a plastic bag). Along with my Allinson flour and Soil Association organic eggs I wasn’t doing too badly on the wildlife-friendly front. Although organic eggs are a little bit more expensive, I don't eat a lot of them so it doesn't work out too badly.
Because I was making this banana loaf as a present, I wanted to make it a little bit extra special by adding some Love Nature chocolate (made in the UK with organic and Fairtrade ingredients, and no palm oil). It was a good decision! By the time Sunday afternoon rolled round, there wasn’t much left of this:
My Nana's recipe always goes down a storm and it was made all the more enjoyable knowing that the ingredients I’d used were helping to provide a healthy, sustainable environment for wildlife.
Tomorrow, we'll hear about the economics of farming and how that impacts on us as consumers. In the meantime, I’ve volunteered to make a cake for a meeting next week – do you have any suggestions on what it should be? Let me know if you have any recipe ideas!