banana & rum cake

This is another wonderful cake to have with your mid-morning tea or coffee. It is very easy to make and I put it together one Saturday morning in between the various weekend chores I had to do. The cake isn't egg-free for any reason other than the fact I had no eggs in the house and I wanted to make a banana cake to use up the over ripe ones sat in my kitchen. You don't have to add the rum syrup, it's delicious and moist without but the rum helps to elevate this cake to something a little more grown-up and special.



Ingredients

Cake:
1 cup soured milk (sour regular milk by adding the juice of a lemon) or regular yogurt
1 cup oil
3 bananas mashed

3/4 tsp baking powder
2 cups of caster sugar
3 cups of self raising flour
2 tsp vanilla extract 

a little milk if too thick
Pinch salt

Syrup:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup dark rum
Squeeze of lemon juice

1. Grease and flour a bundt tin, and preheat the oven to 180°C, 350°F. 
2. Place all the cake ingredients in a bowl and beat together using a wooden spoon or electric hand whisk until everything is well combined, if it’s a bit thick add a little extra milk. 
3. Pour the mixture into the tin then bake in the oven for about 50 minutes until well risen and a skewer comes out clean.
4. Turn off the oven, and remove cake. Leave it to cool in the tin while you prepare the syrup by heating the ingredients together until the sugar has completely dissolved into the rum syrup.
5. With a skewer poke holes all over the cake and while the cake and syrup are still warm pour the syrup over the cake. Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin then turn out and serve.

easy mint and garlic sauce

This sauce goes brilliantly with my lamb kebabs or any other grilled food. Feel free to do as you wish with it. I tried it with some monkfish and salmon skewers and it was ace too. You can use any type of yogurt but I suggest you avoid set yogurts. There is also no need to go for full fat versions here, you are adding a lot of flavour so it seems a shame to waste the calories.
This is also another recipe in which it is best to use dried rather than fresh mint. I discovered this when reading one of my favourite recipe books from the Turkish restaurant, Sofra. Enjoy.

Ingredients
small pot of low fat natural yogurt. (I used this one.)
1-2 tsps dried mint
1 clove of garlic, crushed (optional)
salt to taste
pepper

Mix all the ingredients and adjust to your taste. Not everyone likes the taste or pungency of raw garlic so add as much or as little as you like.