RSS Feed

Tag Archives: Everyday Super Foods

Banana and Date Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream Icing

Posted on November 22, 2015 by The quirk and the cool

IMG_8859

Recently I made Figgy Banana Bread from Jamie Oliver’s Everyday Super Food. I love it because it’s got nuts and seeds, and I’m mad on both. Plus the banana, figs and apple in the recipe give it a beautiful natural sweetness. It tastes great and feels healthy.

I decided to make banana bread using the principle of the Jamie recipe with a few changes. I changed the figs for dates for a start as I wanted the kind of caramel flavor that dates bring. And I made it as a cake, or rather 2 small cakes, one round, one square. I iced the little cakes with luscious salted caramel buttercream icing. The “healthy” benefits may have been put to one side, but hay, you don’t have to be good all the time!

IMG_8839

So here is the recipe. The quantities make one one medium size cake or two small cakes. You could even make this cake in a loaf tin and forgo the icing and you will have nice  banana and date bread…

Ingredients

Cake

170g pitted dates

75ml vegetable oil

125g natural yoghurt

1 tbs vanilla extract

4 ripe bananas

2 large free-range eggs

150g wholemeal self-raising flour

1 heaped tsp baking powder

100g ground almonds

1 tbs sesame seeds

1tsp ground ginger

Buttercream Icing

100g softened butter

200g icing sugar

1 tbs salted caramel sauce (you can make your own – recipe below, or simply use dulce de leche or any caramel sauce with a little salt added)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease one round baking tin or two small tins or bake the mixture in a large loaf tin for the more conventional banana bread look.

Place the dates in a food processor and blitz till the dates are  really finely chopped. The add the oil, yoghurt, vanilla extract, peeled and roughly chopped bananas and eggs, and blitz until smooth.

Add the flour, baking powder, ground almonds, sesame seeds and ground ginger and pulse until only just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin(s) and spread out evenly. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes for the large cake or 25 t0 30 minutes for the small cakes or until until a skewer inserted into the cake(s) comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

When cool, remove from the tin(s) and ice generously with the salted caramel icing. I also drizzled the cakes with extra caramel sauce.

Buttercream Icing

Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer or you can even use a food processor  When light, fluffy and creamy stir in the salted caramel.

IMG_8856

Salted Caramel Sauce

Ingredients:

200g white sugar

90g salted butter, in small pieces

120ml cream

1 tsp salt

Method

Heat the sugar in a heavy bottomed  saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, until the sugar turns into a tea coloured liquid as you continue to stir. At this stage the toffee/caramel flavour is achieved. If you take the liquid to a slightly darker brown colour, you will achieve that “burnt’ flavour – but beware it is really easy to actually burn the caramel!

Now add the butter very carefully – the caramel will bubble up. Stir the caramel until the butter is completely melted.

Pour in the cream while continuing to stir. The mixture will  bubble when cream is added. Allow the mixture to boil for about a minute. Remove from the heat and stir in the  salt.

Allow to cool before using. The caramel will thicken on cooling and thicken even more in the fridge. To ensure the caramel sauce is pour-able for the pavlovas, VERY carefully microwave to warm up on low heat. Or you could sit the container in a bowl of hot water to warm up.

Advertisement

2 Comments

Posted in Cakes, Dessert, Sweet Food and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Jamie Oliver’s Granola Dust and Breakfast Trifle

Posted on November 7, 2015 by The quirk and the cool

IMG_8905

IMG_8900

Granola Dust is from Jamie Oliver’s Everyday Super Food. It’s basically a granola mix blitzed in the food processor until the mix becomes pulverized. Great for serving with fresh fruit, or just sprinkling over muesli to add another texture.

I love adding Granola Dust to muffins as I did in my last post, Blueberry Granola Dust Muffins. They taste quite nutty, and healthy!

In the photo above, I made a breakfast trifle by layering mixed berries, Greek yoghurt and Granola Dust with a drizzle of honey, in a jar. You could do the same thing in a bowl.

These quantities for Granola Dust are what Jamie specifies in his book. I thought that sounded rather a lot, so I made a quarter of the mix – this gave me half a large jar’s worth of Granola Dust.

IMG_8515

Ingredients

1kg porridge oats

250g unsalted mixed nuts such as walnuts, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios, cashews

100g mixed seeds such as chia, poppy,sunflower, sesame, linseed, pumpkin

250g mixed dried fruit such as blueberries, cranberries, sour cherries mango, apricots, figs, sultanas

3 tablespoons quality cocoa powder

1 tablespoon freshly ground coffee

1 orange

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.  Place the oats, nuts and seeds in a large baking tray. Toss together and roast for 15 minutes, stirring halfway.

Stir the dried fruit, cocoa and coffee into the mix, finely grate over the orange zest, then in batches, blitz in the food processor till the mixture forms a rough powder or dust.

Transfer to a large glass jar (or jars) to store.

IMG_8543

IMG_8915

1 Comment

Posted in Breakfast, Vegetarian and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Blueberry Granola Dust Muffins

Posted on November 1, 2015 by The quirk and the cool

IMG_8782IMG_8785

A huge fan of the muffin, I have lately changed my “go-to” basic muffin recipe. As a fan of the baker James Morton, whose bread prowess I have talked about a lot on this blog, I recently acquired his latest book How Baking Works (And What to do When it Doesn’t):

http://www.amazon.com/How-Baking-Works-What-Doesnt/dp/009195990X

He has much to say about, well, how baking works, and lots of tips for the trickier aspects of baking.

I thought I had muffin-making down pat, using The Moosewood Cookbook recipe which has been my staple since forever, but James’ tips about weighing all ingredients, even the liquids, and a few other good pointers, have given me some inspiration to try his muffin-making method from the above book.

To make a really healthy muffin, I substituted wholemeal flour for white, added Granola Dust – Jamie Oliver‘s pulverized granola mix from his Everyday Super Foods – and lots of seeds. I substituted honey for sugar. A very tasty and fruity muffin and good for you too!

But you could use sugar, and completely leave out the Granola Dust and seeds if you like  – they both add texture and a nice nutty taste but are not essential – and this recipe still produces a great blueberry muffin. Maybe bump-up the flour by 20g if you leave out the Granola Dust and seeds.

Ingredients

250g wholemeal plain flour

1 1/2tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

A  pinch of salt

40g Granola Dust (optional)

30g mixed seeds (eg poppy, sesame, chia, linseed) (optional)

150g blueberries

100g honey or golden caste rugar

1 free-range egg

100g milk semi-skimmed or full fat milk

100g natural yoghurt

100g sunflower oil

150g blueberries

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C, 160 degrees C fan-forced.  Line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin papers, or grease the tin with butter or oil spray.

In one bowl, add the flour, baking powder, bi-carb, salt, Granola Dust and seeds, mixing carefully to integrate the dry ingredients. Add the blueberries and mix to coat the fruit. Be careful not to break up the fruit.

In another bowl, whisk together the sugar, egg, milk, yoghurt and sunflower oil.

Pour all the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and, using a wooden or large metal spoon, gently mix everything together. Make sure all the floury mix is combined,  but be careful not to over mix.  No flour should be visible, but the batter should still seem lumpy.

Divide the mixture evenly into the papers or tins, and bake for about 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the muffins (bigger muffins take longer). When done, they should be golden brown and should bounce back when pressed firmly. Or carefully insert a skewer into the centre of the muffin and see if it comes out clean the muffins are cooked.

Cool the muffins in the tin before eating, advice I’m not particularly good at heeding!

I served my muffins with Greek style yoghurt and honey. Healthy and delicious.

IMG_8794

3 Comments

Posted in Muffins, Small Baked Things, Sweet Food, Vegetarian and tagged , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Jamie Oliver Figgy Banana Bread

Posted on October 24, 2015 by The quirk and the cool

IMG_8673IMG_8662

Another lovely recipe from Jamie Oliver’s healthy cookbook Everyday Super Food. It’s a banana bread that is very flavoursome and sweet with remarkably, no sugar! The sweetness comes from the bananas, dried figs and apple. This quirky writer has a sweet tooth, and this recipe really satisfies me.

Reading and cooking recipes from Jamie’s book I’m appreciating that cooking with healthy eating in mind doesn’t mean cutting down on deliciousness. Jamie’s Smoothie Pancakes full of blueberries that I cooked recently, are luscious, sweet and satisfying.

Ingredients

250g dried figs

75ml cold pressed rapeseed oil

125g natural yoghurt

1 tbs vanilla extract

4 ripe bananas

2 large free-range eggs

150g wholemeal self-raising flour

1 heaped tsp baking powder

100g ground almonds

1 tbs poppy seeds

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

1 apple

50g whole almonds (skin on)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line a 25cm baking tin with with scrunched sheet of wet greaseproof paper. (You could bake the mixture in a large loaf tin for the more conventional banana bread look. I like the cake tin idea as the bread is so sweet and so rather cake-like.)

Place 200g of the figs in food processor with the oil, yoghurt, vanilla extract, peeled and roughly chopped bananas and eggs. Blitz until smooth.

Add the flour, baking powder, ground almonds, poppy seeds and turmeric and pulse until only just combined. Coarsely grate and then stir in the apple.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and spread out evenly. Tear or chop the remaining 50g figs into pieces. Scatter over the mixture, pushing them in slightly. Chop the almonds and scatter over. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until until a skewer inserted into the bread comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Serve as is, or with any combination of yoghurt, honey and home-made nut butter. I made brazil nut butter to serve with my banana bread.

IMG_8695

Nut butter

To make 1 jar:

Place 200g of any unsalted nuts in a preheated 180 degrees C oven on a baking tray. Bake for 8-10 minutes, then remove from the oven and leave to cool for at least 5 minutes. Tip the nuts into the food processor with a small pinch of sea salt and blitz. The blitzing takes a while for the nuts to be finely ground and then to turn into nut butter. Stop blitzing occasionally and scrape down the the sides of the processor. When the nut butter is the consistency you personally like – from crunchy through to super smooth – store in a jar.

IMG_8679

 

 

 

17 Comments

Posted in Bread, Breakfast, Cakes, Healthy, Sweet Food and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Jamie Oliver Smoothie Pancakes with Berries, Banana, Yoghurt and Nuts

Posted on October 10, 2015 by The quirk and the cool

IMG_8581

IMG_8574

Super food, super easy and super good! Jamie’s latest book Everyday Super Food is a bit of a revelation, crammed full of beautiful, colourful, easy recipes that are really healthy.

The research, the nutritional information, and the carefully planned and written recipes make this book a must-read and a must-cook. I’m big on flavour, and what I’ve cooked so far is bursting with it …I can’t  wait to cook more!

If you love cooking, love really tasty food, and would like to feel that you are doing your bit to eat healthily, then get Everday Super Food. It’s common sense, not faddish, and do-able!

I made Smoothie Pancakes with Berries, Banana, Yoghurt and Nuts today. I went for blueberries, next time I’ll try raspberries. I didn’t realize till I was making the recipe that there was no sugar – the blueberries are sweet enough – even for the sweet tooth of this quirky writer! The drizzle of honey on the pancakes themselves when serving adds that little extra sweetness which is nice. Here is Jamie’s recipe very slightly tweaked.

Ingredients

320g blueberries or raspberries

1 ripe banana

170ml semi-skimmed milk

1 large free-range egg

250g wholemeal self raising flour

To serve

4 tbs natural yoghurt

Sprinkle of ground cinnamon

30g mixed unsalted nuts, chopped

Drizzle of honey

Method

Blitz half the berries, peeled banana, milk, egg and flour in a food processor or blender to make a smooth pancake batter. Fold in the remaining berries. Place a large non-stick frying pan on a medium high heat. When hot, put some batter into the frying pan to make large pancakes or small ones. I went for smallish. Cook for a couple of minutes on each side, or until crisp and browned. Jamie suggests flipping them for an additional 30 seconds each side to ensure they are super crispy. This seemed to work for me.

You can serve whole, or slice the pancakes in half so you can see the fruit. Serve with a spoonful or two of yoghurt, a sprinkling of cinnamon, some chopped nuts and a drizzle of honey over the whole lot. Delish.

IMG_8606

 

 

2 Comments

Posted in Breakfast, Healthy, Pancakes, Crumpets and Waffles, Sweet Food and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
%d bloggers like this: