Earl grey tea banana bread

I made this earl grey tea banana bread for my friend Angie for breakfast when she came to visit as earl grey is her favourite tea.  This is in addition to the chocolate beetroot cake to ensure a warm welcome to London :) 

It's a lovely moist fragrant bread and went very well with a cup of tea.  It was definitely worth the extra effort making it.

 very strong tea

 melt butter, strong tea and sugars

 lovely 'tea syrup'

 mix ingredients 

 add bananas

 fresh from the oven 

5 Earl Grey Tea bags

150ml boiling water

45g brown sugar

180g golden caster sugar

100g butter

255ml sour cream

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 medium eggs, lightly beaten

250g self raising flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 medium bananas

Preheat oven to 180C.

Place tea bags in mug and pour boiling water over it. 

Leave to steep for 5 minutes before removing teabags.

In a small saucepan, place strong tea, sugars and butter then melt over a low heat until the sugar granules have dispersed and it has turned into a buttery brown syrup. 

Leave to cool for 10 minutes or so. 

In a large bowl, mix together the sour cream and bicarbonate of soda and leave to stand for 5 minutes. 

Stir in the melted mixture and eggs. 

Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon into another bowl. 

Gradually fold in the sour cream mixture followed by the mashed bananas. 

Divide into 2 loaf tins and sprinkle some brown sugar on top if you want a sugary crust (It's great!).

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool in tins for about 20 minutes before turning out to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Great Brownie Bake Off Event 2010

Yesterday was the Great Brownie Bake Off at Look Mum No Hands Cafe in Old Street, hosted by Louise Thomas of the Chocolate Consultancy. It was a very busy and successful event. I do wish I'd taken more photos but I was too busy chatting to people, eating the delicious samples and trying to sell my cakes! 

It was a fun day, I got to meet quite a few lovely people including Edd Kimber, winner of the Great British Bake Off. 

I was very pleased to sell most of my home baked goodies particularly as I spent all of Friday night baking. Thank you so much to my friends who helped out :) Thank you also to everyone who bought my baked goodies. I hope you enjoyed it. 

oreo cupcakes were very popular on the day 

oreo truffles were equally popular. 

amazing halloween themed cakes made by Caroline who is raising money for charity. Please visit http://www.justgiving.com/namibia2011 for more details. 

Gu demonstrations

Edd made banana and chocolate whoopie pies and I got to sample one. Delicious! 

sasha made mocha tarts which were amazing 

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

Been on a bit of a baking marathon for Chinese New Year. Unfortunately I haven't had time to post them yet but hopefully will get to them soon. These are not particularly festive but I wanted to try them out. The cookies were really soft and crumbly with a nice savoury taste. I made them 3 times recently - once without lemon zest. I personally prefer it with the lemon zest as I think it complements the flavour really well. These cookies are really simple to make and taste amazing. The best part is that they can be made in advance and kept in the freezer. You can then bake them whenever you need. Ideal for unexpected guests and perfect with a nice cup of tea.

Dough that has been frozen for 30 minutes

Sliced and ready to bake. When I was shaping the dough I thought it would be square (not sure why) but clearly they're not! I do quite like the shape especially since you can have Jenga cookies :)

 
Earl Grey Tea Cookies
2 cups flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons of Earl Grey tea leaves (approximately 4-6 teabags, depending on size)
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon water
250g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces (I used salted butter once and it made the cookies quite salty)
Zest of 1 small lemon
 

• Heat oven to 190C
• Place all dry ingredients in a food processor and mix thoroughly
• Add the vanilla, 1 teaspoon water and the butter and pulse together until a dough is formed
• Roll the dough into a log, rectangle, square (I'm clearly not very good at shapes)
• Wrap with clingfim and chill for 30 minutes (approx 15 mins in the freezer)
• Slice the dough and place on a baking sheet leaving a little gap between them
• Bake until the edges are just brown, about 15 minutes (slightly longer if baked straight from the freezer)
• Leave the cookies to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely