26 November 2009

Banana Walnut Cake & missing my dear old laptop

Honestly I’ve never thought I’ll feel so attached to a device as I’m not really a gadget person. I try not to because devices tend to wear out or spoiled or even stolen and I don’t want to feel all that bad when it does. I don’t even have the latest phone model! But ever since I left work to be stay home to be a mommy, my laptop has been my trusted companion. It connects me to the outside world, help me meet new friends via forums, enlighten me about parenting from the world wide web. And it’s even my very own DJ console as I have more than 6000 songs stored in it. After I started blogging it’s becomes even more valuable to me.

Sadly, after nearly 3 years of heavy usage, it begins to break down, starting with a crack on the casing and eventually the monitor cease to function. It’s been a week since I sent it for repair and no news yet. I just hope the hard disk can be salvaged so that I can transfer all my stuffs to a new laptop ( that is if I’m getting one! aiihhh) So at the moment I've to make do with my hubby’s super high end PC.  Honestly I prefer my own laptop even though his much faster and has more storage, but beggars can’t be choosers right.

Oh well back to food, I still cook just that I couldn’t upload and write recipes as often as I want so at the moment it’s mostly just photos until I get the laptop only I’ll update with recipes. So do bear with me till then ya! This afternoon I dreamed a funny dream, about me helping Santa Claus to save the fairy and magical kingdom by baking a tray of sugar cookies! And all these was in a Harry Potter inspired background. How weird! So feeling slightly disoriented after a weird and not to mention exhausting dream, I decided to bake banana walnut cake, only because I had a few left and they are about to go bad.  Recipes would be up real soon! :)

 




You Need   
1 cup (115 grams) walnuts or pecans,
1 3/4 cups (230 grams) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (150 grams) brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 ground nutmeg
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter melted and cooled plus extra for greasing
3 ripe large bananas , peeled
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

How To 
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius / 350 degree Fahrenheit. Lightly grease and line a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf tin / bread pan or in my case two small loaf tins. Set aside.
2. Place the nuts on a baking tray/sheet and bake for  8 minutes or until lightly toasted. Let cool and chop coarsely
3. Sift the flour, sugar, salt and the spices into a large bowl. In a separate bowl mash the bananas, stir in the eggs ,melted butter and vanilla essence. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix well.
4. Spoon into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour. Test to see if the loaf is cooked by inserting a skewer into the centre. If it comes out clean, the loaf is done. If not, bake for a further 10 minutes and test again.
5 Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin. Turn out the loaf, slice and serve

Enjoy!!

3 comments:

  1. Gorgeous photos alesia- Certainly I can feel the "pain" without the handy computer!

    ps- been reading your food blog through petrina. =)

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  2. Ahhhhhh! I always wanted to make one of those but not sure I trust the recipes I found online! Yours look georgeous though!

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  3. Hi Daphne and guess what I go to your blog too! Via Petrina as well hehe. And I must say, you're a wonderful cook! Very impressive :)

    Pui Yee, same here! It took me quite a while to try this, but still need some improvement :)

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Thank you for dropping by my blog and would love to hear from you. So if you want to leave a comment here, please do so. Don't fret if you don't see me replying your lovely comments only because I'm busy being a mother and as much as I want to be with my laptop all day long I can't. But as always thanks again for the messages :) and I'll try to reply them soonest possible. ♥

And if you have any questions or suggestions, do drop me an email at (alesiasim@gmail.com)