SUNDAY BAKING: QUICK VEGAN BANANA CHOCOLATE CAKE

I run one of those households that often (or well, always) ends up with a banana or two turned so ripe they're too yucky to eat. But they can happily go in a cake!

So today we decided to bake one with Dag; a quick banana based chocolate cake that is - for being a cake, -not too unhealhty. Kids can easily participate here as things like getting to mash banana is fun and easy to do, and with a big enough bowl not necessarily even that messy.

It's a cake easily altered, for example, I add some more spices to this during the colder season.

You will need:
3 ripe banans
around 50g of dried dates + a hint of water
1dl coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
1-1,5 dl cocoa
3 dl spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 dl oil  - I use coconut oil
(+ a dash of cinnamon)

Now, to make the easy things hard, or at least a bit more confusing for you: I have made this with four small bananas and with just two bananas and both versions work as well. The more banans the less dates you need, so when I had four banana-nanas I used just five dates. Also adjut the amount of cocoa powder to your own taste; 1,5 dl of cocoa makes the  rather dark and strong so you can go with less if that suits you better. I have also made this without the soda and it turned out fine. I you don't care about it being vegan or not you will get a nice cake by using butter instead of oil too (and you can of course toss in an egg for more fluffyness but then again that is already another cake). For more spices try some ginger and clover and perhaps a little cardamom.

First,  pre-heat the oven to 200c. Chop the dates and put them in a pan with a hint of water so it covers the dates, and heat up. Let it boil for a little while so you get a sticky paste. Add a little water if needed so the dates don't burn.

Mash the bananas with a fork or a masher. Add the sugar and cocoa, then the date-mass, then flour and finally the oil (in a runny state). Put in a greased cake mold (or fold it with baking paper).

I don't think the batter on this one is very good raw (which is a good thing, because that means more cake later) but Dag was eager to lick the bowl.

Bake for 35-50 minutes in 200C, depending on your oven and the size of your mold. Try it with a stick and take out to cool.

You can eat this warm, as it is or with ice cream. I prefer it after a day or two in the fridge.
Pimp it up with salted peanuts (no that's not crazy!), jam or with a bunch of cherries and some chocolate coconut cream  frosting!

SHADES OF COOL FOR THIS SUMMER SUNDAY

Most Finnish people will still be out of reach of -or not interested in -the internet right now, post drunk and hungover from Midsummer, but for everyone else in the world, here is some Soft Sunday music.

No one can make living in a valium haze, getting shitfaced on daiquiris by 2p.m. or haunting your old lover's life with the bittersweet memories of you look as good as Lana Del Rey. I don't like all of her songs, but the ones I like I love. This is such a sad and beautiful video I've watched over and over; I've always loved Lana's appearance and also how she makes her videos look just like she sounds.

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: SUNDAY

 Having an autumn filled with performances and workshops around town and from city to city it is such a relief to have a day off that really is that; off everything. Dag and I are cosy in the countryhouse kitchen listening to the radio, with the nasty weather outside.

The cats are enjoying their breakfast. Or brunch. Or snack. A little hard to say what they consider it.

We had a late breakfast; porridge with homemade strawberry jam and banana. Although the kids have some several times a week, I haven't had porridge myself in ages.

We're going to go out a bit and then I intend to take it easy and go trough lots of interior magazines that I havenät had the time to browse trough. Ah, Sunday!

SLOWER, BUT BETTER

We haven't had some soft Sunday music in a while over here!
(Although the actual list itself over at Spotify gets and update every now and then)

Soft Sunday Song of today is what was referred to as the "Brokeback Mountain version of Jolene". What makes this different from any other cover of the song is the fact that this is not a cover at all, just Dolly's record played at a slower speed. And it sounds pretty awesome.

SUNDAY / (MY FIRST) MOTHER'S DAY

SUNDAY SNAPSHOT

Sunday. Dag sleeping, a bread in the oven, the whole internet in front of me, a cup of tea and whatever's on the radio.

SUNDAY / MOSTLY IN THE KITCHEN

Today when I woke up it was all white outside! Very pretty yes, but it's still only October! Way too cold too soon, brrr!

After a short walk amongst the white I spent most of my day in the kitchen.

The light in there was quite nice today.

It's surprising how strong the late autumn light can sometimes be, when it happens to come around. 

(And hey, only 8 weeks and we start going towards longer, lighter days again!)

I made a set of fig fudge to snack and lunch on for the week to come.

And put some mint from the garden I've dried into jars. Mint tea sessions ahead, oh yeah.

I put Dag out on the kitchen cold porch to sleep, after he'd been trying out different moods.

I've been cleaning up and organizing in there (the porch). The old postcards I've had in my kitchens before will hang there soon. But let's check back on that space some other time.

Back to the kitchen! I tried out a raw pumpkin pie, using pretty much this recipe from Jolie. Halloween!

And pumpkin-tomato soup for dinner with the rest of the pumkin. The soup got a nice full taste by adding uncooked bellpepper, onions and garlic plus a few dried apricots, fresh herbs and sun dried tomatoes just before mashing it all together. With lots of garlic, to keep the Halloween vampires away. Haha. (I often add some sundried tomatoes, a few apricots -or dates- or olives as spices in soups and sauces.)

I served the soup with popped aramanth, hemp seeds and chipotle tabasco. 

Possible leftovers works well as a pasta sauce.

The pumpkin pie was ment to be eaten with (a raw food) licorice sauce but I didn't have all that was needed for that s made mine of coconut cream, anis, some of that mint, agave and a hint of chardamom. Turned out rather nice togehter with a cup of black coffee!

And little monsieur shoutey kept quiet for a while and sported his smurf / Snowwhite and the seven dwarfs look.

MORE NOSTALGIA

Late nineties nostalgia!
From my Soft Sunday-list.

Then on another note, as it sometimes seem only bigger happenings in life brings out reactions here on the interwebs (like, getting married, buying a mintgreen smeg or having a baby) I put up a little poll there in the sidebar so you can click on themes you'd like to see more of here. Although I kind of know the answer as almost everyone will click OUTFITS anyway.

...and not that I will change anything though, I'll still keep on posting what I feel like posting and what I have time for but you know, it's always nice to get to do some clicking online isn't it?
(And haha, there will only be so many giveaways as I find interesting products or get good suggestions of. I just put it there as an option because, well, because :)

SUNDAY BAKING pt.5 - BERRIES & BUTTER

Cake time!

This is one of those yummier-than-you'd-thinkcakes. I remember my mom making something similar to this a lot at our summer cottage in the archipelago when I was a kid; it's easy to make and you can do it out of basically any fruit or berries. I personally think the best result comes from using something sour, at least partly. I basically just make a basic sockerkaka (sponge cake) ; the version with no butter (or oil), add the fruit and then put thin slices of butter and sprinkle sugar on top. You can do it in a regular cake mold; I did mine here in a rather small but deep pan.

I use a bit less sugar for the batter than what the regular sponge cakes usually have, and as usual blend regular white flour with spelt flour.

This cake consisted of:
4 ecological eggs, fluffed with- 3 dl sugar, blended with - 4 dl of mixed flours - about 1dl of milk - 2 large teaspoons of baking powder and a hint of vanilla sugar.

I sliced three peaches and added a coffee cup  of red wineberries and black currants that I picked in the garden. They are not ready yet, but I really wanted some, so I scanned the bushes for those few berries that were ripe - got just enough!


And, cold butter sliced in thin pieces over the cake. This is easily done with a cheese slicer. I sprinkle brown sugar over it, perhaps two tablespoons all together, depending on thee size of your mold of course (my brown sugar had gone hard so I used the slicer for that too - works well!). Then it's overn time until the cake looks ready. As I did mine in a pan it was thus rather thin and was done in about 25 minutes.


Alright, off to make your cake now and serve it with something white! Ice cream is always a good choice.

SUNDAY BAKING pt.4: RHUBARB AND CRUMBLE

It's best to get the rhubarb cut and consumed, or preserved, early in summer before it grows too thick and bitter. I've been doing some pies, jams and juice the past week. Which is great as the years before I've seen most of the rhubarb go to waist as I didn't have time for any of that.

Rhubarb crumble pie is super easy to make. For a somewhat lighter option go for more fruit and less crumble. But one does not have to be super healthy all the time though, so I made mine with quite a lot of crumble. You can still do a little good by using a richer mix of flours instead of just wheat. I also added two smashed slices of Finn Crip (crispy rye bread) for a little more "roughness" in the taste. I never measure, just blend until the texture is nice and crumbly. ( I tried one version with egg whites, almond flour and coconut flakes some weeks ago which would have been quite nice would I have used sugar isntead of stevia. Here's a little hint: stevia and rhubarb do not go well together. Yuck!)

The pie is best served warm with something sweet and white (like vanilla ice cream for example), although it's pretty alright after a night in the fridge too.

(And what do I mean "Sunday baking part four"?
Well, at some point I thoguht I'd do some Sunday blog baking monthly or bi-monthly.
Turns out once a year or every 18-months was more realistic....
Previous Sunday bakery-stuff here: 1, 2, 3. But then again whatthehell as I bake on other days too anyway. More under the rather mixed Food-label.)

SUNDAY.

I was supposed to give you some Sunday baking but the recipe did not turn out that well; we'll save it for another go and another time. The rest of the day I spent out in the sunshine in the countryside gardening (or, having others help me out with it actually) and fixing that patio of mine among the lilacs. Barefoot.  So - here's a song for you instead.



Not available on my Sunday list -yet- as the song cannot be found on Spotify.

TIME FOR SOME SOFT SUNDAY MUSIC

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: ONE KIND OF SUNDAY

 There's been a blizzard out there all day long, had to be outside for a while and I am sure as hell not going back out again until spring. Unless I have to. Which, I'm afraid, is rather likely...

The Helsinki Burlesque Festival is over, phew and whoah at the same time. And it has left me with quite a mess at home to clean up...

But that is for later. Instead I've been enjoying mud cake and peppermint tea. While reading about Tinker Bell and myself in today's paper.

Otherwise I have just been hanging out in my regular Sunday make up...


OK yea yeah not really; I had a photo shoot.
A rather amazing shoot actually, which you will see all of as soon as I get the pictures! Too bad I didn't snap any behind-the-scenes photo, the setting was beautiful... But you would know that already would you internet-nerd yourself and virtually hang out with me on Facebook.