Happy Queen's B'day!

It's Queen b'day today, although i hardly know her, but God Bless the Queen for because of her, I got to enjoy ( probably the last ) public holiday before Christmas.

Public holidays are rare and precious in Australia. All year round, we have but only a small numbers of public holidays: The New Years day, The Australia day, The Easter, The Anzac ( which was not made public holiday because it falls on Saturday this year :( ), The Queens b'day, Labour day ( which are yet to be proclaim to be public holiday this year ) Christmas and Boxing day!! We often need to make plans a few months ahead if we plan to go on a short break during the long weekend, the motel will always be fully booked, and the traffic going out of the city would also be quite dreadful, not to mention the stress of driving because of the triple demerit points during public holidays!!



Because my husband have his essay to be completed, and a record book of dangerous level demerit points, we decided not to go anywhere, and just chilled out and enjoy the surprising sunny Monday. To keep up with the Queen b'day's theme, I decided to bake a traditional English cake. Well, you need a cake for every b'day, especially your queen's b'day.



This cake was a traditional autumnal cake from the country of Gloucester shire in England. Gloucester shire is very famous for it's apples, pear and plums.The local cheese: the double Gloucester, has also been made in Gloucester shire since the 16th century and was traditionally made from milk produced by Old Gloucester cattle. It is a hard, pale orangey cheese with a creamy, almost buttery, nutty flavor and a flaky texture. Hence, the Gloucester cake, was made from the locally produced apples and cheese. I have never eaten a cake made from hard cheeses, and was very eager to try when I first read about this cake from NQN. I was lucky enough to lay my hand on some quality double Gloucester, but like NQN, i also make it with pear instead of apple because I love the juicy and sweet Corella pears.



Double Gloucester Cheese Cake with Corella Pears

Ingredients:

• 225g Corella Pears, ( about 3-4 small sized pears )
• 120g Butter, soften
• 180g Caster sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 120g Double Gloucester, grated
• 450g Plain Flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
• 2 tsp Baking powder
  
• 3 tbsp yoghurt
• 60g flaked almonds

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius, line and grease a large loaf pan with grease proof paper.
   
2. Grate the pear, retain all skin and juices
3. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and eggs.
   
4. Sift together the flour, bicarb soda and baking powder
5. Combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredient, stir in the pear, cheese, and yoghurt. If the mixture appear to little too dry, add a dash of milk.
   
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, sprinkle the flaked almond on top.
   
7. Bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour. Rest in the pan for about 5 mins before turning out onto wire rack to cool down further.
   

I like to serve the cake warm, straight from the oven, with a glass of cold chardonnay.
Oh, I'm not too sure if the Queen is truely happy on her birthday, but I sure am!!

Are you an adventurous dunker?

They say when it comes to morning teas, afternoon teas or supper, there are only 2 types of person, the dunker, and the non-dunker. If you're the later, then a little explanation for you:
to dunk, is to dip biscuit, bread, cakes etch into beverages like coffee, milk or tea. The dunking, can soften the biscuit, and hence, able to enhance the flavours to particularly dry biscuits, bread or cake. One of my greatest childhood pleasure was to dunk heaps of "ping pong" brand soda biscuits into hot Milo. Later when I was a little bigger, and demand for better dunking biscuits like Oreo into milk. As i was getting older, i also have experimented with almost every dunking biscuits with different beverages. Lately, i fall in love with a whole new level of dunking activities, i discovered that dunking banana into hot mocha creates a wonderful taste sensation. I know it sounded a bit awful, but if you have not tried it before, i urge you to try it just once. You may like it, you may not, it doesn't hurt to try! I am totally addicted to the strong coffee aroma that comes with biting into the banana.


That is why, when i come across this banana coffee bread recipe from Australia Good Food Magazines, I know i just have to bake it. and yes, it's not a typo, it's suppose to be a bread, and to be baked into the bread loaf tin, but I don't have the big loaf tin, and I just happen to buy a silicon baba cake mould. So, it came out looking like a cake, but with the texture of banana bread. This cake/bread is also very moist, and have a very light texture, laden with coffee and banana aroma. If you remember my mission to use up the wattle seeds from the pantry, then you won't be surprise i also added wattle seed, to further boost the coffee aroma.



Coffee Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 cup mashed very ripe banana
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarb soda
• 2 tbsp finely ground espresso coffee ( i use instant espresso coffee )
  
• 1 tbsp wattle seeds

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 190 degree Celsius, grease and line a large loaf tin, or a 22cm baba tin
2. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil until smooth.
3. Add banana, sour cream and vanilla. Stir until combined.
4. Sift the flours, baking powder, bicarb soda and wattle seeds. Add in the coffee.
   
5. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until all combined.
   
6. Pour mixture into the prepared tin, and bake for 50-60 mins. Cool in pan before turning it out. If using the baba mould, turn it upside down and leave to cool.
   

It's perfectly fine to serve it just like that, warm or cold with a dollop of cream and dusting with icing sugar, but I'm trying to be fancy and a drizzle the cake/bread with custard, and decorated with fresh sliced banana.
yeap, i love banana; and coffee.