Baking + Photography

I had only planned to make a cake today, but somewhere along the way, I ended up making a bit more than a cake. We're having a bit of a food thriftathon {i.e. not wasting too much food}, so these brown bananas needed using up somehow. I still have some banana ice-cream in the freezer, so I thought I would create a quick banoffee pie. When I was in my 20s, I would have made a banoffee pie properly {making my own caramel}, but it is so much easier to get it off the shelf in a tin {Carnation and Merchant Gourmet do it}.

Ew! Black Bananas

I made a quick flan base and baked it blind in the oven before pouring the caramel and banana into it and topping it with whipped cream and some grated chocolate!

Yum! Banoffee Pie

Unfortunately {or fortunately}, I had a little pastry leftover, so rather than throw it, I made a few jam tarts. As it is such a nice day, I thought I would take the tart into the garden and get some photos.

Jam Tart

I was so pleased with the result, that when my cake was baked, I took that outside to play with my camera too.

Cherry & Almond Cake

I am so pleased that my cherries are distributed evenly as it's so disappointing if they sink.

I took a few shots of the garden too:

Hosta unfurling itself

My cat trying to catch a bee!

So, on to the recipe.

Ingredients

140g butter

140g caster sugar

2 eggs

125ml milk

1tsp almond essence

100g glace cherries

Flaked Almonds

Method

1.Rub the butter and flour in a bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs.

2. Stir in the sugar.

3. Add the beaten eggs, milk and almond essence along with the cherries.

4. Mix well.

5. Pour into a deep 20cm tin which you have buttered. Sprinkle a handful of flaked almonds on the top and pop in the oven at 180C for 1 hour. Mine only took 55 minutes, so you may want to get it out ten minutes before the hour is up and test with a skewer.

This recipe has been adapted from the original Fresh Cherry Almond Cake by BBC Good Food.

Love Mrs Jones x