My little sister called me from New York few weeks ago, asking me for banana cake recipe, and of course my answer was: look for it in the blog.

And she did. (I think)

The few days ago, I called her, while we were talking, I asked her about the banana cake and her answer was: “oh, I didn’t use your recipe, it is just too complicated:

…

I was a little sad in the beginning, but when I saw my recipe, I think may be she was right, I mean, I am sure it is hard to find black rice flour in New York and all. And after all, my recipe was more bready than cakey.

Well, darling girl, this one is for you. Simple banana and to the point banana cake. You don’t even need a mixer to make it.

And it is soft, sweet, crumbly. Just like you. Hugs!

Banana Cake

115 gram unsalted butter, softened

100 gram sugar

1 egg

125 ml plain yoghurt

2 ripe medium banana, pureed

170 gram all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp sugar for sprinkling

seeds from 1 vanilla pod

Preheat the oven to 350F/Gas 4/180C

Butter and flour one 28×16cm pan

Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Mix well the softened butter and sugar with hand, then add the egg, mix well, then the yoghurt, mix well, then pureed banana, mix well then vanilla seeds. Add the flour mixture, mix until just incorporate, don’t over mix.

Transfer to the baking pan, spread well, sprinkle that 1 tablespoon of sugar on top

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted come out clean.

Wait until it cools down abit (20 minutes) before cutting it. I know it is hard to wait for the cake :) In fact, I took photos of Charlie to keep me distracted from the cake:

Have a nice weekend everyone! :)

This banana bread spooked many people :) I can understand that the colour is a bit unusual, that is because I use black rice flour. The first question asked was: is it old? or is it still okay to eat? :) Well, it is not old and it is VERY ok to be eaten, it was moist and delicious and somehow earthy. I kind of love its taupe colour, and this colour also reminds me of my good friend Aliki in Milan :) I am sure she will love this kind of earthy bread.

Anyway, the ones responsible for me making this banana bread were these beauties :

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It has been more than a month since I wrote the last post…too long! I have been busy with projects, loads of meetings and cross continent travel…uffff….I am back home in Indonesia now, last week was nightmare, jet lag plus bad cold, I guess I am not made for this hectic life.

If you noticed, this photo is too ‘rigid’ than my usual moody ones :) because I used my photography set to shoot this, couldn’t be bothered to style this as I was tired after working all day (even today is sunday!) and I still am. But I promised to post the recipe to Mrs. Eka, she was my English teacher back in high school and she asked me for the rice pudding recipe and I said I would. A promise is a promise :) (more…)

Is my cookie too small or is my tea cup too big? :) Made this yesterday, my first reaction was on the first bite was: hmmm…it is ONLY ok, the second bite: ow, it is quite good :) the third bite: I don’t think I can stop eating this :))) Made with four kind of flours: whole wheat+all purpose+organic red rice+oat (both we made at home) (more…)

I have just got back from a week trip to Solo, Central Java, visiting my best friend Deb and to Bali to meet Bruno and Lorenzo before they returned to Milan. I am back at home now, with loads of beautiful batik and ingredients I brought back from Bali and Surabaya. Still need to organise those, plus catching up with the wired part of me :) I opened my computer and see this recipe I should have posted before I left for the trip.

I just wanted simple banana muffin but with a bit of twist, so I added podang mangoes (again), I try to make as many food as I can with these beauties before their season ends :) (more…)

This was like two hours ago, we turned off the light, brought in the birthday cake, mom blew the candles, we all had a slice and it was wonderful :) With the light off, you can’t really see the cake, with the light on:

You see? There is frosting. Yes. FROSTING, my worst enemy. Making the cake was quite straight forward, but I really struggle with the frosting for hours! My friend Ivan even gave me a call, worrying about by frosting crisis this afternoon. But I did not give up, and finally: One birthday cake for mom, made all by me :) Yes, it looked abit childish. Yes, it was uneven. Yes, it was imperfect. But It was beautifully imperfect, loaded with love. (more…)

Ahhhh…a rather small victory today, making my first tortina in Indonesia. Everything is local ingredients, except the butter which is exported from France (still can’t believe I only can find margarine in Indonesia, no local butter, but will keep looking).

I woke up at 8 today, with an URGE to bake :) and I finished at 12. A rather long time for baking…errrrr…NOT only baking… this included chasing the chicken for eggs (not me, my tata…cracking, grating, squeezing coconut for the milk, looking for rolling pin and ended up with bottle…you know what I mean :) but if you have ready made coconut milk, some organic eggs and ready-to-use pastry sheet, then you can make this much faster. But in my small village (no supermarket, no organic grocer), if you want the good things, you just could not get them fast, but I am not complaining, for example, I needed fresh eggs, so my tata went to some old women who had hens at their house, and you just can’t get as much as you want, it all depends how many eggs the hens lay that day, we could only get three (they came not in plastic bag, but wrapped in banana leaves :). There is not organic chicken farming here, except those ‘industrial’ chicken and eggs (meaning poor chickens trapped in small cages with zillion other chickens), there is not even organic term here in my village, but there is kampung food (means village), and they are good food…Oh, I can go on and on about this, I will stop now and just tell you more about the urge :)

It is started yesterday by having some ripe podang mangoes on my table, with wonderful aroma that tempted me to turn them into something. That something happened to be tarts. I started to make the dough last night, leaving it in the fridge overnight, woke up at 8, and started baking the process:) (more…)

Gooooooddddd Mooorrrrnnnning saturday!

Beautiful day today, sunny in florence in my little brother’s house. When we were having breakfast, I found out I forgot to put the butter back in the fridge last night, so it is kind of softened. So, why not make cookies? :) This is kind of spontaneous cookies, made without sugar (could not find a pack of brown sugar I bought some days ago), throwing whatever ingredients I could find in my brother’s kitchen cupboard. It turned out so delicious, perfectly sweetened by the barley malt, dried apricot and white chocolate, and the smell woke up the rest of my brother housemates…sorry I,Y and A! :)

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Part of my strawberry madness few weeks ago, when I bought a crate full of sicilian strawberry :) Marco was looking at me horrifyingly when I returned from the market with a big big smile on my face and this three and a half kilos of strawberry. It was kind of hard to finish them, we turned into strawberry victims :) I made: strawberry smoothies, ate them with aged balsamic vinegar, made them into macedonia, turned them into jams, compote, syrup, ate with pancakes and finally made this pannacotta. Uffffff…Here is the photo of THAT crate of strawberry :)

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Two weeks ago, I was trying to make Marco’s favourite jam: pear and chocolate, I did not really know how to make it, so I just did some trials and errors, and this came from one error that I made: the jam was too thick and have texture like black olive pate, but we really liked it so we decided to call it pate di pere e cioccolato - pear and chocolate pate :) We have just opened our second jar (the first one finished within a week) and have given some more to friends and family.

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