It´s all about passion!

Its been quite a while now that I have stopped following the recipes precisely. Not that I am declaring myself a master chef who knows everything nor that I dont try other peoples recipes at all...Its just that once youve developed a taste of your own, you automatically like sticking to it and no matter what recipe you are having infront of you, you are unconsiously altering it to suit your own taste preferences. When talking about baking and cooking, I believe, the old original recipes are certainly the best but its mainly the foundational principles and techniques that should be followed more carefully and each recipe can then be tweaked according to your tastebuds.

Food is all about creativity, passion and joy. Also, one shouldnt hesitate to follow the gut instinct. If your heart wants you to replace a few ingredients with your own shortcuts, feel free to do that. Just try to comprehend the main science and proportion of ingredients in the original recipe and then let your tongue be your guide. There are various recipes of Passion Cake available online; mostly using ginger, nuts and carrots. Since carrot cake itself is my most favourite of all the cakes, I wanted to save its guaranteed no-fail recipe for a seperate post and have, therefore, deliberately left the carrots here. The new direction is somewhat closer to another favouite tea-time treat of mine, i.e. Banana Walnut Bread. Hope you all like the new yet familiar taste....

Passion Cake

Passion Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar (very fine granulated) or 1 1/4 cups icing sugar
few drops of vanilla essence
2 large eggs
1/4 cup butter (room temperature)
1/4 cup yoghurt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/4 cup chopped almonds/walnuts

Sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add salt and half of the sugar to this.

Add butter and mix well using your finger tips or you can also use the electric beaters for this.

Take yoghurt in a seperate bowl and add vanilla and mashed bananas to it.

Now take the remaining sugar in a seperate bowl, add both eggs and beat for 5 min until creamy.

With the same beaters, beat the banana yoghurt mixture as well until it forms a smooth paste.

Add half of the flour mixture to the egg mixture as well as half of the banana-yoghurt. Fold carefully. Repeat the process with the rest half. Also fold the walnuts. Pour in a lined and greased bread loaf tin (or ring mould/ ca. 8") and bake in preheated oven (180C) for 30-35 min.

Serve with tea or coffee.