Delicious Ginger Banana Cake with a Lemon Frosting

Delicious Ginger Banana Cake with a Lemon Frosting

My finished masterpiece...sort of!

Today I made this delicious ginger and banana cake which tastes so yummy i just had to share the recipe! The original version of the recipe can be found in the Australian Women's Weekly 'Cakes & Slices' Cookbook:

Ginger Banana Cake

• 90g butter
• 2 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 1/4 cup of caster sugar
• 1/4 brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2/3 cup mashed bananas (I used 2)
• 1 1/2 cups of self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
• 2 teaspoons of ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon of milk

Lemon Frosting

• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.
• 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar
• 30g of butter
• 1/4 cup of chopped glace ginger

1. Grease a 20cm ring pan and turn the oven on to 180°C.C
2. Cream the butter, sugars and golden syrup in a bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg, beat until combined, and then beat in the mashed bananas.
4. Stir in the sifted dry ingredients and milk. 
5. Pour the mixture into a prepared pan and cook in the oven for about 45 minutes.
6. Let it stand for five minutes before turning it out of the tin and leaving it on a wire rack to cool. 
7. For the lemon frosting combine the sifted icing sugar with butter and enough lemon juice to make it a spreadable consistency.
8. When the cake is cool spread on the icing sugar and then place the glace ginger on top.
9. Eat and ENJOY!

The Cotswolds

I have decided to write a post about the Cotswolds. Many people picture the little cottage from the film 'the Holiday' that Kate Winslet lives in when the Cotswolds are mentioned, but their knowledge of the area seems to only stretch to that!  I am always surprised by the number of people that don't know what, let alone where the Cotswolds are when I say thats where I'm from. I am often left with blank looks, or people just smile and nod as they are too embarrassed to admit their severe lack of geographical knowledge....so in a VERY brief rundown, and with many thanks to Wikipedia, here it goes:

The Cotswolds are a range of hills in southwestern and west-central England. They cover an area about 25 miles across and 90 miles long.

A map of the Cotswolds.

From the map you can see the area the Cotswolds cover in England- and I live roughly in between Chippenham and Tetbury.
The Cotswolds mainly lie within the counties of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, however it does extend into the counties of Wiltshire, Somerset, Worcestershire and Warwickshire.
In 1966 the Cotswolds were awarded an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The whole area is characterised by many of the buildings been built out of the attractive Cotswold stone (a yellow oolitic limestone) as seen below:

Typical Cotswold stone villages.

The beauty of the Cotswolds has meant that it has remained affluent and has attracted wealthy people who either own second homes in the area or have decided to retire there.

So...I hope you enjoyed the whistle stop tour of the area I live in, and hopefully now you will be slightly more clued up when somebody tells you they are from the Cotswolds....you may even be able to surprise them and recite them some facts about the area!

MM xx

Easy Chocolate Truffles

Today I made some delicious chocolate truffles for mum to take as a present to a dinner party she was going to (I find homemade presents will always beat anything shop bought.)

At first I was rather hesitant as this was my first attempt at making them, but I soon realised they were ridiculously easy to make!

Recipe:

25g butter

125ml of cream

140g of dark chocolate

1. melt the butter with the cream in a saucepan until it starts to simmer.

2. In a desperate bowl crush up the chocolate into small pieces.

3. Remove the cream and butter mix from the heat and pour it over the chocolate and stir until all the chocolate has melted into the mixture.

4. Allow this mixture to cool before placing it in the fridge for at least 4 hrs.

5. When the 4 hrs is up and the mixture looks sufficiently set remove it from the fridge and covering your hands in icing sugar to prevent sticking then scoop out balls of he chocolate mixture with a teaspoon and then roll them to get a small ball shape.  

6. You can then go on to roll this ball in cocoa powder, or you can branch out and roll it in mixed nuts, stem finger pieces, or for the very daring of you try chilli! 

7.  Place the truffles in small truffle cases place them in a nice looking box and taa daa you have a perfect present that anyone would love to receive! 

Here are some of mine I made- some are rolled in cocoa powder, and some in crushed almonds!

 

MM xx

An Introduction...

Hi! Right, before I start chatting about why I have started a blog I'm going to give you a whistle stop tour of who I am:
My name is Olivia (hence the title of this blog), however I only get called Olivia by my family and closest family friends- to everyone else I am known as Mini.
I live in the Cotswold's, in a small (yes VERY small) village called Alderton. By me and my elder sisters views we live in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere as in 20 minutes to the nearest town, and no takeaways will deliver to us as we are outside their delivery area. Realistically we are not too in the middle of nowhere I suppose....we are a 25 minute drive to Bristol, a 30 minute drive to Bath and I can get to London in a 2hr drive or a 1hr 15min train journey.
Currently I am a student at the University of Bristol (yes I decided to stay rather close to home) and I am in my second year studying Geography. I will be graduating (fingers crossed!) in 2015.
I have 2 sisters- one older and one younger. The younger is still at school having just started A levels, and the elder one is on her year abroad living in São Paulo working for the foreign office (and also writing a blog: Being a Brit in Brazil).
I decided to start a blog not only because it has been something I have wanted to do for a long time, but also because I felt I had a lot of free time at University and as my friends will know I'm not somebody who finds it easy to sit down and do nothing- so hopefully this will be a way of keeping entertained!
There is not something specific that I want to blog about, but instead I'm going to post about lifestyle in general- travel, fashion, health and topics of interest to me.
So, here it goes....and thank you for reading.

MM xx