Baking with a glass of Champagne

Voila, perhaps I can bake

Out of the pretty pink container

Looks a little caramelised

Pour into pretty pink container

sift the flour & salt

This seriously looks curdled to me (Eeeeeuuuuwwwwww)

Mash the bananas, Bring on the champagne

Still trying to find that light and creamy texture

Cream the butter and sugar together (yeah right)

I can't bake, I have never been able to bake, I hail from a Grandmother, who was a Home Economics school teacher who could bake and cook up a storm at the drop of a hat (not to mention, knit, sew and create beautiful things). My mother and I however seemed to have inherited only the being able to cook side of things. My Mother is an amazing cook, able to whip up food, that will remain in your memories for aeon's to come (don't get me started on the over catering bit, though). However although I can cook, I CAN"T BAKE. I could write a book on the fiasco's I have had over the years, lets mention the fudge that set in the pot, the marshmallows that ended up, stalactite looking, holding onto my ceiling, and lets not go to where I decided one weekend after successfully cooking Beef Wellington on Friday night, and Duck a'la orange on Saturday I felt invincible on the Sunday and thought, if I could cook those, surely I can bake. I need to digress at this point to mention I had a wonderful miniature Maltese poodle at the time called Whiskey, who would eat anything not nailed to the floor. Well this unfortunate Sunday after mastering two very successful dishes, I venture into the kitchen to bake a sticky toffee pudding for my family. Well suffice to say, Grant and Jordy had one spoonfull and politely made there way as far away from the pudding as they could, so I called Hoover (Whiskey) over to have some, and even my darling boy, turned his nose up at it and walked away. So with that in mind, I put baking away in the recesses of my mind, and decided it was just something, i would never be able to add to my repertoire. However, I decided (stupidly) that if I could ever find, pink silicone baking dishes, I would buy them, and try, try and try again, until such time as, I either got it right or poisoned my family in the process. Well fortuitously (or not), I was at Boardmans in Design Quarter today (buying a birthday pressy for a good friend) and lo and behold they have pink silicone bake ware. So I buy the cake and loaf shape, with all good intentions of coming home and using at least one of them. Now grant loves banana bread and only ever gets it, when Cally makes it for him or we buy it from Broadacres Spar, so with a mission in mind, I decide, that on my way home, I will get what I need to make banana bread (please remember that I have never done this before, so have no idea what goes into banana bread, I figure, it must have flour, sugar and banana's then I figure it must have cinnamon, honey or syrup , trying to remember what it tastes like). Now I digress again, but it is pertinent, I wore the shoes from hell today, my feet were already killing me when I got out of the car this morning in the car park, walking into the building. I spent most of my working day with my shoes off under my desk, and only went downstairs for two ciggies the whole day as my feet were being tortured so badly. So by the time I had done a whole day at work, walked around Design Quarter to get the birthday pressie and hobbled back to the car, the last thing I felt like doing was going into a shop to buy baking ingredients. However, Pink silicone baking dishes in tow, I got out, grabbed a trolley and went shopping for ingredients, I figured there must be syrup or honey (so bought both), was convinced there was pecan nuts as well (so bought those) bought flour, bananas, unsalted butter brown and white sugar (just in case, didn"t know which was right) and Cinnamon, then made my way home (by which stage I was cursing the shoes, like they were tools sent straight from Satan, they have definitely been relegated to the section of, DON"T ever wear these again). Anyway I get back home, find a recipe for banana loaf and start making it, all the while, thinking to myself "this is seriously not going to work" Jordy even said, "don't worry Mum, we will let the dog try it first" (nice, NOT), however I find out that actually banana bread does not have honey, syrup or pecan nuts, or Cinnamon not the the recipe I have anyway). I pour the obligatory glass of champagne and get stuck in (I can't seriously do this without a glass of bubbles). It says beat the butter and sugar until it is light and creamy, well after some considerable time of beating away merrily, my butter and sugar, has pulled away from the side of the bowl and created a very neat large ball (if I was making bread, this would be a bonus) no light and creamy in sight, it then says add three large mashed banana's (seriously, how big is a large banana, no rudeness intended), which I do, the mixture now resembles something really disgusting and looks decidedly curdled (at which stage Grant is looking very scared), add the flour and salt (sifted) done, now add a bicarb of soda and water mix (done). empty into pretty pink (previously buttered) silicone loaf container. Place in oven for 45 minutes (then pray to the good Lord, for a different outcome). 25 minutes later I take a peak through the oven door and, shew, it actually looks like it should. I wait till the 45 minute buzzer goes off, ask grant to take it out of the oven. Well what a Numpty, he figures it is a plastic dish so he doesn't need oven gloves to remove it, grabs it firmly with both hands and realises very quickly that pretty pink "plastic looking" cookware, is just as hot as normal metal ones. I go through to the kitchen and lo and behold, it looks like banana bread, smells like banana bread and wait ....... IT TASTES LIKE BANANA BREAD. well blow me over with a feather, I MANAGED TO BAKE. Well here's to finding my bubbles again. Going to try a cake this weekend (look out dogs).

till next time

xoxo