Banana coconut cake

Ingredients:

300 gm butter at room temperature
275 gm runny honey
6 big eggs
300 gm ripe banana, mashed
175 gm wholemeal flour
175 gm desiccated coconut
1.5 teaspoon baking powder

Method:

1. Cream the butter and honey till the mixture is fluffy and light.
2. Break the eggs into the mixture and beat till eggs are mixed.
3. Add the mashed bananas, and mix well.
4. Add the flour, desiccated coconut and baking powder. Mix well.
5. Pour into prepared baking tins, and bake at 150-175 degrees Centigrade in a pre-heated oven for an hour.

Apple "Rose" Muffins

Ingredients:
(Yields ~8  muffins)

• 3 apples 
• 80g butter
• 50g muscovado sugar (alternatively white or brown)
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 150g flour
• a dash of milk

Dough:
1. Thoroughly blend soft butter with sugar in a bowl until creamy.
2. Add egg and vanilla and whisk together.
3. Add flour and mix well.
4. Add a dash of milk to achieve a consistency more fluid than Mürbeteig but firmer than pancakes batter.

Rose petals:
1. Cut apples in half and remove the core.
2. Slice the apples into ~2mm slices.
3. Spread out the slices onto a plate suitable for microwave usage. (Optional: Sprinkle some vanilla sugar onto the slices. This depends on how sour the apples are)
4. Pop the plate with apple slices into the microwave on high heat for 3-4 min. This will soften the apples so that they don't break when roling later.

  

Combining:

1. Fill the muffin cups half way with dough.
2. After the apples have cooled slightly, layer 11-15 slices in a line on a cutting board, so that the semi circles overlap each other half way.
3. Start rolling up the apples slices starting at the first one that had been layed down. This requires both hands and sometimes a bit of fiddling work.
4. Place the rolled up apple slices into the muffin cups containing dough, push down slightly and adjust the pattals to your liking.
5. Bake at 150°C for around 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Adjust temperature or time if the apple slices start getting too brown.

 

Honey lemon ginger cordial

400 gm lemon juice
450 gm honey
350 gm ground fresh ginger
450 gm water

Boil the ground ginger in the water for about 5 minutes. Strain the mixture through a sieve. Put the ginger "juice" back into a pot, add a tbsp of the ground ginger to it. Bring to boil again. Then add the honey and lemon juice and bring to boil again. Bottle.

As this is a cordial, dilute with 4 to 8 times hot or cold water before serving.

I can usually keep my cordial for up to 4 months in the fridge.