The Art of Living: The Pleasure of Baking

It's National Baking Week with homes and schools across the country full of the joyous smell of baking and the happy munching of some good old home-made cake, including us!  It doesn't have to be baking week for our household to get out the mixing bowl, at the moment it's a weekly thing with Gabe ('I'm nearly 4') requesting to make cake nearly every day.  Banana Cake was yesterday and Apple Cake is the order of today - one of my favourites.  I never thought it would be my son who would make me realise the pleasure of baking. 

Gabe's Banana Bread

I watched Kirstie's Handmade Britain last night on Channel 4 with some very sophisticated cake making. It had me drooling over the cakes and also admiring Kirstie's late night prize-winning efforts. Kirstie, I can relate to the boys-stealing-utensils scenario! Whilst I like eating fancy cakes - those Eclairs looked amazing - fancy baking is not my thing at all.  I'm definitely a cobble it all together and hope for the best kind of baker - that's why I choose foolproof Banana Bread. But...maybe if I had a Kenwood mixer.....

Here's some places where we get regular food inspiration:

Housewife Confidential is a favourite of ours with a mouth-watering recipe index and a new section about Baby Led Weaning which has got me very inspired.  The video of 'Betsy Led Weaning has to be seen.  It's amazing to witness the progress of a baby learning to feed herself solids.  I've never seen anything like it.  It's a great project by Kat to have captured all those moments of Betsy on camera.  Do share this video - it really will help inspire mamas who've wondered about trying Baby Led Weaning. It has certainly confimed the approach for me.

My Daddy Cooks is a seriously good site and book with family recipes that are tasty and work. 
I actually think Kat of Housewife Confidential and Nick of My Daddy Cooks should get together and do a show! I think it's a format that would work....watch this space!

Let us know where you get your baking inspiration and we'd love some recipe guest blogs for the autumn season and for Christmas - do get in touch!

Happy baking and cake-eating!

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This is part of the Art of Living series of posts that bring you all the things we are passionate about and the things we discover in our lives as mamas.

In our Wednesday Woo blog post series we present a selection of things from the Sisters Guild Boutique.

We also have a Monday Makery with ideas for things to make yourself.

And for a glimpse behind the scenes of Sisters Guild we have the A-Z of Sisters Guild here 

www.sistersguild.co.uk

Monday Makery - Banana Bread

There's a highly recommended cookbook that we use regularly at home. It's The River Cottage Family Cookbook and it's full of simple recipes with lovely pictures
Gabe has even started sitting with the book and flicking through asking questions and requesting to do certain recipes, which fills me with joy. It has definitely become THE family cookbook and is very reliable for all the basic recipes and cooking tips.

One of our favourite recipes is the Banana Bread.  We've adapted it a little - swapping the caster sugar for Fruit Sugar and Self-Raising flour for Gluten Free Self-Raising flour so it is less likely to flare up Gabe's Ezcema.

Ingredients:

Dried Apricots 75g
Sultanas 75g
Lemon 1
Unsalted butter 100g (we use olive oil spread and it works fine)
Caster Sugar 125g (can substitute with Fruit Sugar 100g)
Eggs 2 large
Bananas 3 large ripe
Self-raising flour 200g (Gluten Free Flour can be used - Dove's Farm do a good one)

Method:

1. Preheat Oven to 160 degrees C / Gas Mark 3.  Line the loaf tin with baking parchment.
2. Chop up apricot pieces and grate the lemon zest. (we actually skipped the lemon zest bit)
3. Cream the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until creamy.  Beat in both eggs.  Add the dried fruit and lemon zest (a squeeze of a lemon is just as good - my boy likes the 'geeezing')
4. Mash the bananas well with the fork and add to bowl.  Stir well.
5. Sift the flour into the bowl and fold into the mixture.
6. Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin.  Put into the oven for 50 mins - 1 hour.
7. When it's out of the oven leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before you turn it onto a wire rack.
8. Slice, grab & enjoy

It fills the house with such a delicious smell.
We always have to scoff some when it's still warm, though we know that banana bread is actually even more tasty the next day - if it lasts that long!

Thank you River Cottage Family Cookbook

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We have more Monday Makery craft & recipe ideas here.

For behind the scenes photos of Sisters Guild we have the gallery of the A-Z of Sisters Guild here.