Bananas that go in lunch boxes and come back looking like they have been in a massive street brawl have only one use afterwards......in a cake!  I baked this banana loaf which not only has bananas, but coconut and orange zest and juice added to it too.  Its a really blinged up banana loaf and really tasty.  

The recipe for this banana loaf was given to me by my best friend in 1998 when we lived on Ascension Island.  I was showing my children on the weekend that it was on the same piece of paper that she faxed as it was dated 1998....and we only lived next door to each other....it must have been a wet day!!  My youngest son was completely baffled and asked what a fax was!!! At eight years old, he only knows email and text message etc.

Recipe:

Oven temperature 175 degrees Celsius.  Grease and base lined large loaf tin, or used a grease proof loaf tin liner.

2 cups plain flour (sifted)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter softened

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

grated zest of one orange

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup orange juice

4 medium bananas mashed (really ripe bananas work best)

1 cup dessicated coconut

3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, baking soda, orange juice, and orange zest until well combined (2 to 3 minutes).  Mix in the bananas.  Stir in the coconut and nuts if using.  This will make a thick batter.  Spread the batter into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 50 to 60 minutes or until a cake tester, inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing from the tin to cool completely. 

It has really been all about bread this week!  My friend celebrated her birthday and her hubby wanted to give her a cake shaped liked loaf of bread as when they were in his words "poor students," the only thing he managed to get her on her birthday was a fresh loaf of bread with some butter.  The cake wasn't meant to go on a bread board, but when I was doing it I had this idea that as a loaf of bread it shouldn't be on anything else but a bread board.  A new bread board in a small town can set you back at least twelve quid so a visit to the charity shop and 50p later, I had a bread board.  After soaking it in boiling  water and then scrubbing every inch of it, it made the perfect board for the cake.  The butter, loaf and slice is all cake, so little waste in that loaf!!!!  

Last week I have been mostly baking.....with the awful weather, it's back to hibernation, so we have had all-sorts of treats.  The Barn Farm Shop in the town has had lots of citrus fruits in over the past month, so we have had lemon meringues, lime meringues and this week the oranges were 8 for a quid which is so cheap and  so Orange Meringue Pies, were baked on Sunday.  

Some of the meringue was a little darker than I wanted.....admittedly I got carried away watching the FA Cup final, so the time in the oven went to about five and half mins, (I forgot to set my timer oops) but they still tasted good and disappeared rather quickly.  I based the  recipe on the lemon meringue ones which I posted a little while ago, but I made a sweet shortcrust pastry for the cases instead of shortbread bases.

Sweet Shortcrust

8 oz plain flour, 4 oz butter, 2 tablespoons icing sugar, 1 beaten egg.  

To get deep cases to fit the muffin tin, I opened out a muffin paper case, and cut around it.....pastry cases as deep as the tin....with a little fitting and trimming!

April is over and we are rushing through May!.  April has been a month of birthdays, and our middle son was 18 last weekend.  I decided to bake him a huge chocolate cake and what could be more fitting than doing a music themed cake as he is a brilliant musician who plays trumpet and piano.  He was really impressed by the music score which turned out well, considering I was piping it on at two in the morning!  We didn't get to cut the cake though...he took it to college and shared it with his fellow students in the music department.

We went of to a friends wedding on Saturday.  We met up with so many people who we haven't seen in ten years or more, due to us moving and travelling.  It was so good to catch up, and share stories and of course to toast the beautiful bride and groom....the bride was working in the hospital on Ascension Island when our middle son was born (18 years ago) so it was yet another occasion worth toasting.  

Time flies when you're having fun.  The weekend just zoomed by as we spent it with friends, chatting, eating, drinking wine and singing on Saturday evening, then finished of with an afternoon at the raceway yesterday.  

On Saturday afternoon I cooked a trio of curries.   I made a traditional St Helenian chicken curry and then a beef madras and a lamb rogan josh.  It is satisfying to make a curry at home and cheaper than a take away.  It just takes time and effort to prepare, but they can left to cook or a low heat afterwards.  It isn't hard to do and the spices are readily available from local supermarkets and Asian food shops.  

Beef Madras, Lamb Rogan Josh, St Helenian Chicken Curry.  

Each of these recipes serve four.

Beef Madras (aromatic, pungent and spicy)

2 lb stewing beef (beef shin is great), 3 tbsp sunflower oil, 1 large onion finely chopped, 4 cloves, 4 green cardamom pods,  1 inch piece of root ginger, peeled and chopped, 2 garlic cloves crushed, 2 green chillies finely chopped, 2 dried red chillies (leave whole), 2 tsp ground coriander, 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1/2 tsp salt, 250 ml beef stock.

Remove any visible fat from the meat and cut into 1/2 inch cubes.  Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion, cloves, and cardamom pods for 5 minutes.  Add the chillies, cumin seeds, ginger, garlic, and fry for a further 2 minutes.  Add the beef and fry for 5 - 8 minutes until the meat is lightly browned.  Add the coriander, salt, ground cumin and stock.  Cover and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally until the meat is tender.  Add more salt if necessary, remove the whole red chillies and serve with rice.

Rogan Josh (Marinate the lamb in the yoghurt overnight or for a minimum of four hours)

2 lb lamb fillet, 3 tbsp lemon juice, 250 ml natural yoghurt, 1 tsp salt, 2 garlic cloves, crushed, 1 inch piece of root ginger, peeled and chopped, 3 tbsp sunflower oil, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 2 bay leaves, 4 green cardamom pods, 1 onion finely chopped, 2 tsp ground coriander, 2 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp chilli powder, 14 oz can chopped tomatoes, 2 tsp tomato puree, 150 ml water.

Remove any visible fat from the meat and cut into 1/2 inch cubes.  Place meat in a no metallic bowl and mix in the yoghurt, lemon juice, salt, 1 crushed garlic clove and the ginger.  Cover and leave to marinate overnight in the refrigerator.  

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the cumin seeds for 2 minutes or until they splutter.  Add the cardamom pods,  onion, and garlic and fry for  5 minutes.  Add the chilli powder, ground coriander, and ground cumin and fry for a further 2 minutes.  Add the marinated lamb and fry for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the tomato puree, chopped tomatoes and water.  Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally, then cover and simmer gently for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until the meat is tender.  Add more salt if necessary and serve hot with boiled rice.   

Back to school and warmer weather......typical! Still hopefully we will get an injection of summer...so bring on the sun so we can light the BBQ and sit around drinking daiquiris (time to bring out the smoothie machine), and rather a lot of bacardi!

This week I have been taking stock of all the cook books I have.  Some sit in the kitchen on a specially made shelf, a lot sit in a large box, not seeing the light of day, for the past six years we have been in the UK and more years from living in other countries too!  I have been trying to break a habit of being drawn to the glossy baking books that catch my eye in just about every shop (apart from Aldo shoe shop), these days.  I have favourite books, and books which I think look great, but I haven't yet made a thing from, so I have decided to give myself the task of baking/cooking something from each of my books over the days/weeks/months.......should make for some interesting blog posts.

In the meantime, I baked a chocolate cake for the son of my friend, last week.  It had to be angry birds....he was really chuffed, I believe.  All of it was edible....so I bet there was some small boys bouncing of the walls after eating the fondant birds!

All the commercial hype about Easter and it has come and gone.  The shops had been full of Easter eggs, since the end of December, and the weather has made us feel like we were really and truly stuck in December.  As usual, the collection of Easter eggs in our house was huge (I didn't buy any, they were gifts and a school bingo prize), but once the small chocolates that comes in the packages are eaten, we are then left with about half a dozen or so chocolate eggs, that no one wants to eat, so naturally in the coming week they will be up-cycled into a crispy cake of some sort!

I have been baking a few things in the past weeks and donated the Easter cupcakes below for a fundraising event in aid of the Severn Hospice as well as a I baked a  few extra to give to the neighbours over Easter.  I love baking and it is even more satisfying knowing that a couple of hours spent in the kitchen, can raise money for worthwhile causes.    

Its been a while, but so much has happened in the past few weeks.....mostly I was fighting of the dreaded cold and aches that comes with it.  

I had hoped to make a lemon pie of some sort a while ago, and kept buying the lemons, but used them for other things and not getting round to making a pie but on a cold, cold Saturday last weekend, I made Lemon Meringue Shortbread pies....they were delicious.

I didn't use the normal pastry for the bases, but used a shortbread recipe instead (bit of an experiment) which even though it was a little tricky to roll and line the tins with, it tasted fantastic in the pies.  Again I am going to link it to Pamela's Heavenly Treats, the blog to showcase Desserts!

Makes approx 18

Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius, 2 x muffin tins 

Shortbread

2 cups plain flour

1 cup salted butter

1/2 cup icing sugar

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Mix in the flour, then use your hands to make a smooth dough.  Wrap the dough in cling wrap and chill for a minimum of 30 mins. 

To make the pies:

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and using a round circle cutter, cut out circles to line your muffin tins. (Preferably so the pastry is the depth of the cup for deep pies).  Place the tins in the refrigerator for approx 15 mins to chill the dough again.

Bake the pastry shells blind (use pastry weights/rice etc) for approx 8 mins until golden.  Remove the weights and bake for a further three to four mins.  Remove from the oven and leave in the tins.

To make the Lemon Curd

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup lemon juice (about 4 - 5 lemons)

2 tsp grated lemon zest

4 large eggs yolks (keep the whites for the meringue)

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1/2 cup cornflour

2/3 cup cold water.

Place the sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, egg yolks into a saucepan. Mix together then pour in the boiling water and then mix again thoroughly.  Mix together the cornflour and the cold water.  Place the saucepan over a medium heat, and stirring all the time.  Pour in the cornflour mix and continue to stir over the heat until the curd is thick.   Remove from the heat and pour immediately into the shortbread shells.  

Meringue

4 egg whites

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 tablespoon corn flour

1/4 cup boiling water.

Whisk the egg whites in a grease free bowl until thick . (A good tester is if you tilt the bowl, the egg whites shouldn't move).  Gradually beat in the sugar to form a thick glossy meringue.  Mix the corn flour and boiling water together to make a gel.  Spoon into the meringue mixture and mix in thoroughly.

Spoon the Meringue into a piping bag and pipe the meringue over the curd, to cover it completely.  

Place the trays back into the oven for approx 5 mins to give the meringue a golden colour.  You may need to turn the trays and watch it carefully as the meringue can burn quickly.  

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the trays.  Best Eaten on the same day as the shortbread softens overnight, but still tastes just as good!

Half term holidays so there will be time to experiment this week with some baking and cooking.  Valentines was spent with our boys and we had a lovely meal cooked at home followed by some warm chilli chocolate brownies.  They were delicious, with just a mild spicy kick every now and again.  The next day, when the chocolate bits had hardened, they tasted good, but they were better warm.  Still this is the first batch I made, so I am now going to try using other brands of chilli chocolate and see if there is any difference in heat.....any excuse to bake more!

I am also going to link this to Pamela's Heavenly Treats who runs a blog hop on a Saturday for Desserts.....right up my street!

Recipe

Grease and base line a rectangular baking tin...mine measured 12 x 9 x 1 1/2 inches

Preheat oven to gas mark 4/ 180 degrees Celsius/ 350 F

150g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

200g dark chocolate 

250g butter

300g caster sugar

4 eggs (beaten)

150g chilli chocolate chopped into small pieces

Melt the dark chocolate and the butter in a large bowl together. (I do mine in the microwave in 30 second bursts), but over a pan of hot water is an alternative.  Stir to combine them together then remove from the heat.  Stir in the sugar and the eggs.  Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold into the chocolate mix.  Fold in the chilli chocolate.

Spread the mixture into the tin, then bake on the middle shelf of the oven for exactly 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin.  Cut into squares and enjoy.

It is snowing yet again, so there is some fresh build up of snow on the ice outside!  The men in the house are watching the snooker finals and I am contemplating if I should bake....but a Sunday roast is currently cooking in the oven!

I thought I would post some pictures of my chocolate cake.  It is the one that I am asked to make the most by friends and family and for charity donations etc etc.  It is four layers of chocolate sponge cake, sandwiched together with vanilla cooked flour buttercream then wrapped in a dark chocolate collar (band) and topped with truffles, maltesers and chocolate buttons....basically it is a chocolate indulgence cake!  Quite simply it is amazing just how a collar of chocolate cake can make a basic chocolate sponge, look classy!

I have this week bought another recipe book (my collection is huge) entitled "Made at Home Preserves" by Dick & James Strawbridge.  It has simple recipes for preserves of all kinds which I will attempt to make over the weeks/months, but as soon as I can get to the supermarkets out of town, I will most definitely get the ingredients to try the chilli chocolate brownies (pg 168).  I love chilli chocolate and the brownies look divine.  

Snow!  School is closed today because of snow.....and it is still coming down where we are!  As we are home today, I thought I would again try and use up some of the coconut stored in the cupboard...hence coconut fingers were made today!  

Being from St Helena, a coconut finger is a traditional celebration cake.  It would be outrageous if there was a wedding, christening, or birthday party, family gathering, day out, picnic, etc.  and there were no coconut fingers!  They are usually iced in pink, or green. I imagine it is because they were the food colours that was widely available when our grandparents, and great grandparents and great - great grandparents made them all those years ago.  

Every family or district on St Helena I am sure has their own family recipe for making the sponge cake and for decorating them, which is a messy business.  Some dip the whole sponge into the icing before rolling them in the coconut, or some do them the way I do (which my mum does) by using a flat blade knife and spreading the icing on each side while holding onto the small ends between thumb and index finger, before rolling in the coconut.  

Nevertheless they are a sweet mix of soft sponge cake, icing and coconut.  My smallest son, asked me if it was "St Helena Day" as I usually only make these on 21st May, when we celebrate St Helena Day.  When I told him it was a treat to have with a cup of hot chocolate after playing in the snow, he was then asking "how soon could we go outside?"

This recipe is how I make them.....there will be numerous St Helenian ways of making them, but this one works for me.  The ingredients are in ounces too......next time I will convert them!  

Coconut Fingers

Makes 18

6 oz self raising flour

6 oz caster sugar

6 oz margarine or butter

3 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla flavouring 

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder.

Icing

8 oz icing sugar

pink or green food colouring

hot water

1 small pack desiccated coconut preferably fine.  (But medium will do)

To Make the Cake:

Preheat the Oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Grease and baseline a 8 inch square baking tin.  (You may need to double the ingredients if you are using a larger tin).

Whisk all the ingredients together in a large bowl until pale and creamy and there are no traces of sugar.  Pour into the prepared tin, and bake on the middle shelf  for approximately 25 to 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 mins.

Remove from the tin and cool completely.

To decorate:

Cut the cake half and then cut each half into strips (9 fingers from each half).

Pour the coconut onto a plate.  Place the icing sugar and a small amount of food colouring in a bowl and add hot water by the tablespoon and stir until the icing is of a thick glossy consistency.  Add more water if it is too thick to spread.

Spread the long sides of a finger of cake with the icing, then roll in the coconut.  Set aside for the icing to dry.  Repeat with the remaining cake.  

When the weather is cold, nothing beats some good ole tasty home-made food!!  It's January and theoretically we should all be counting calories etc etc, so to cut back on some the calories in these individual beef and vegetable pies, I have just made a herby shortcrust pastry lid for them...trying to bling up a boring shortcrust lid!  The family really enjoyed them......there was no complaints!

The filling is cooked ahead, before the pies are baked in the oven.  It is all a little time consuming, but the end  result is worth it.  

Beef and Vegetable Pies with a Herby Shortcrust Pastry Lid

Makes six individual pies (deep filled)

For the filling:

1 kg beef shin
1 large onion diced
2 large carrots sliced
3 large flat mushrooms diced
1 medium red chilli (optional)
3 sticks celery sliced finely
3 garlic cloves crushed
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 beef oxo's
1 litre hot water
Fry light Spray

Remove any visible fat from the beef and then dice into 1 1/2 cm cubes.  Spray some fry light into the bottom of a medium saucepan (which has a lid).  Place over a medium heat source and add the beef.  Stir the beef over the heat until it is browned on all sides.  Add the diced onion, garlic and chilli if using and the balsamic vinegar, and stir. Dissolve the oxo's in the hot water and add to the meat in the saucepan.   Stir, then add salt and pepper to taste.  Cover the saucepan with the lid and allow to simmer for approximately one and half hours until the meat is tender, stirring from time to time.  Add the carrots, mushrooms and celery to the meat and cook for a further ten until the carrots are cooked.  Remove from the heat. 

Shortcrust pastry: 

400g plain flour

200g butter cubed

2 tablespoon mixed herbs (dried or fresh)

1/2 tsp salt

4 - 6 tablespoons very cold water

Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the salt and the herbs.  Add the water and combine to make a dough.  Add some more water if the mixture is too dry.

Wrap in clingwrap and chill for up to half and hour.

Making the Pies

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.    Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface.  Place one of the pie dishes upside down on the pastry and cut around it, slightly larger to make the pastry lids.

Fill the pie dishes with the beef filling.  Place a lid on the top of each pie, ensure that it touches the meat and press the pastry into the sides of the pie dish.  Use a knife to make a few slits in the pastry to allow the steam to escape so the pastry will become crisp.

Brush the pastry with some beaten egg and bake in the oven for approximately 25 minutes until the pastry is golden and crisp.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.

It's a New Year and before I find myself bending under the weigh of my resolutions, I have decided this year that I wont make any!  I am heading for a milestone birthday this year....hopefully the weather will be good to me in August, when it is, and apart from wishing that myself and my family will remain happy and healthy  and achieve successfully what we set out to do, there is nothing more, that I should really ask for!!

After the Christmas and New Year splurge.....its back to simple healthy ish ( healthy most of the time I hope) meals.  Having thought this morning that some sort of protein with veggie sticks and dips would be nice this evening, as the hours have ticked by and its has become duller and colder....that idea has fallen by the way side and so, beef and vegetable pies with a home made pastry crust....it is!! So healthy has gone out of the window and had I made a resolution....I would have fallen foul by day 2!!

In September I entered my  mince pie recipe in the Tesco Real Food Bake Off and at the end of October, I got an email which said  

"Congratulations! After you submitted your recipe at tesco.com/realfood you have been drawn as a lucky winner in the Tesco Baking prize draw (week five) featured online at tesco.com/realfood.

Your fabulous prize is a Morphy Richards Hand Blender Work Centre, which combines the convenience of a hand blender with the flexibility of a processor. It has a powerful 700W motor with a turbo setting and an array of accessories to cater for all your food preparation needs."

In November, my prize arrived....all I can say I was well chuffed and naturally the family was very proud of my achievement.   The blender has had a good testing over the weeks, blending my home made soups and the blade attachment made light work of crushing the 300g of ginger nuts for the baileys cheesecake base, I made on Christmas Eve....so Thank you Tesco!!

New Year is upon us and once again we reflect on how fast the last year has gone.  As parents we have watched our children grow up so much in the past year.... our older sons have develop into young street wise men,  and our youngest son has won the battle with ear complications and has started to make some major progression in guitar and piano playing.  Of course there has been lows mixed with the highs, but we have managed to stay positive and now look forward to reaching newer goals in 2013!

Christmas for us is always a family affair, and I for one, enjoy preparing our Christmas meal and making sure everyone gets there requests filled at least on this day.  Having said that I wouldn't be making a cheesecake this year, as we do one almost every year and we would have a trifle instead (I know just a bit boring) I was persuaded by the middle son, on Christmas Eve to make one.....hence the baking of a Baileys Cheesecake!

Having researched several options, I couldn't quite find one that had enough Baileys (if you're going to use it you might as well be able to taste it).....so I winged it....and boy did it taste good!!

Baileys Cheesecake

12 Generous Servings: - Thousands of Calories

Base

300g ginger nut biscuits (crushed into fine crumbs)

50g butter melted

Cheesecake

4 x 250g tubs cream cheese (1000g total)

250ml Baileys 

250ml Double Cream

4 eggs

5 tablespoons icing sugar
50g plain flour

Mixed the melted butter and the biscuit crumbs together and press into the base of a 9 inch round loose bottom tin.  (Deep one preferable)

Bake at 175 degrees celsius for 10 minutes.

While the biscuit base is baking, whisk together all the cheesecake ingredients until thick and creamy,  about 5 minutes.  

Pour the cheesecake mixture over the biscuit base, and bake for approximately 45 minutes on the middle shelf of the oven until firm on the outside and still wobbly on the inside.  Remove from the oven.  Allow to cool, then chill for several hours, preferably overnight.  

The days are rolling by so quickly.  I have had various work commitments over the past two weeks, so haven't had much time to bake.  I still wanted to give Alphabakes November Challenge, hosted by Caroline Makes and The More Occasional Baker, a go, but the letter of the month being "J", was a tricky one!  Hmm I couldn't really come up with much inspiration for "J", only Jam and Jelly came to mind and I couldn't quite come up with anything really exciting.  Tea Time Treats hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked is having a birthday challenge to celebrate one year of their challenges, with "Cake", so thought it would be perfect to enter my cake their too!

So after much deliberation, Jam Crumb Cake it was!!  Having made it twice over the past two weeks, once using raspberry jam, which seems to disappear, and then as below using blackberry jam with whole blackberries....it was brilliant.  The mix of sweetness from the crumble and the tartness of the berries in the jam, along with a vanilla sponge, worked well together and it went down a treat, on a rather cold evening last week!

Jam Crumb Cake

Grease and flour a 8 inch round tin, (mine was about 1 1/2 inches deep).

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

Cake:

5 oz plain flour

4 oz caster sugar

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

3 oz butter

125 ml milk

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 oz (I added a bit more) jam

Crumb Topping

3 oz butter softened

2 oz brown sugar

2 oz granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

6 oz plain flour

For the Cake......Whisk all the ingredients together until combined and pale in colour and then pour into the prepared cake tin.  Dollop the jam on the surface of the cake mixture and lightly swirl in. 

For the Crumb Topping....Mix together the sugars, butter and cinnamon.  Stir in the flour and using your fingertips rub the mixture together  until it looks like breadcrumbs.  Sprinkle over the jam cake mixture.

Bake for 25 to 30 mins until golden and a cake tester/wooden pick, inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the tin.  

Tis the season for lots of pumpkin!  Pumpkins here are not like the ones I can get at home (St Helena), or like my grand-parents grew, with their dark green skins and bright orange flesh inside!  I haven't tried cooking any of the orange ones found here, as they look all dry and forced ripened, so they appear to be grainy and bitter!  To get around this.....Libby's 100% canned pumpkin found in Waitrose, is the best answer to proper home-grown stuff, and can easily be found all year round!

Yesterday I made a Pumpkin Cheesecake.  It is one of my absolute favourite baked cheesecakes, even though for some pumpkin is a bit like Marmite.....you either like it or you hate it.....but in our house we love both!

How to cook Good Food and Franglais Kitchen host a One ingredient challenge, which this month happens to be pumpkin or squash so my Pumpkin Cheesecake is perfect for this. (Recipe Below).

My friend Sue gave me this recipe about 20 years ago.  I think she got it from her aunt after visiting her in the USA or Canada. Having twigged it  with varying amounts of cream cheese or the years, I think its now in a good place!

Ingredients - Base:

1 1/4 cups of finely crushed ginger biscuits crumbs

1/4 cup of melted butter

Filling:

3/4 cup granulated sugar

14 oz cooked pumpkin or a 14 oz can of pumpkin

600g of full fat cream cheese (I used supermarket value brand)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground mixed spice

Method:

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius and base line a 9 inch round, deep spring-form pan.  Half fill a Roasting tin with hot water....to use later. 

Mix the biscuit crumbs and melted butter together and press into the base of the pan.  Bake for ten minutes and then remove from the oven.

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar then mix in the eggs, one at a time.  Add the spices and mix until well combined.  Using a large metal spoon, gentle fold in the pumpkin.....dont worry if there are areas of white, it looks great in the cooked cheesecake.

Pour the cheesecake mixture over the base and place in the middle of the oven.  Place the roasting tin with water at the base of the oven, to create a steamy atmosphere in the oven.  

Bake for 40 -45 minutes until the outside edges of the cheesecake are firm to touch, but the middle of the cheesecake still has a slight wobble.  (Try not to open the oven until around the 40 minute mark, otherwise the steam will escape).

Cool and then chill well....overnight, if you can wait!

I have been wanting to bake up a storm all week, but I seem to be loosing my mojo very fast amongst other things too and yet baking is what makes me happy....but it hasn't been working this week!!

I came across The more occasional Baker and Caroline Makes by chance and they host a monthly Alpha Bakes challenge, with this months, host Ros, hosting the letter N.

With nuts off the menu in our house as my husband has an allergy, and most recipes beginning with a N have some sort of nuts in it........Neapolitan Mousse Cake was an option. I baked my three sponges in the same pan, to make a slim, layer cake.  

I used a 6oz victoria sponge mix ( 6 oz of each self raising flour, caster sugar, butter, 3 large eggs, 2 tablespoons milk, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and the seeds from one vanilla pod). I divided each one equally and then added pink food colouring to one and three tablespoons of cocoa, mixed with two tablespoons warm water to the other.   I baked it at 180 degrees celcius for around 15 minutes.  

I filled the layers and outside with a soft chocolate mousse filling.  - equal weights of light double cream and dark chocolate, heated together and allowed to cool to a soft butter consistency, before stirring in some more hot melted chocolate, which sets quickly and make a mousse with chocolate bits in it.  (sweet but yummy).