Multi seed Banana cake

• 25g soften unsalted butter
• 40g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 ripen bananas, mashed
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 100g self-rising flour
• 50g milk
• Optional: seed mix, vanilla extract (1/4 tsp), cinnamon ground (1/4 tsp)

1. Beat the butter until fluffy, add sugar and mix well
2. Add egg and mix it in
3. Add the mashed banana, mix well
4. Mix in 50g flour, then 50g milk, and 50g flour, mix well at each step
5. Add baking soda and all the other optional ingredients
6. (Sprinkle seeds on top just before baking)
7. Bake @ 170 for 25 mins

Peanut flavour ice cream

to make 500g of ice cream:
200ml cream
150ml milk
85g sugar
1 vanilla pod
1 egg
2+ large tbsp of peanut butter
pinch of salt

1. Slice open the vanilla pod and remove the vanilla seeds with the back of a knife. Place the cream, milk, sugar and the empty vanilla pod in a sauce pan and bring to just boiling.
2. In a large bowl, mix the egg with a pinch of salt and the vanilla seeds.
3. Slowly add the heated cream mix to the egg while whisking vigorously. Scoop out the vanilla pod and discard.
4. Add the peanut butter and mix until the cream mixture is smooth.
5. Leave to cool and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
6. If you have an ice cream maker you can use that from this point on, if you don't own one (like me), pour the cream into a metallic pot and place in the freezer compartment for at least 5 hours. Mix the ice cream every 30-60min to achieve the creamy effect. If you only allow it to freeze without mixing you will taste the water icicles and not iced cream!

French Crêpes

Enough for 5 crêpes:

- 125g plain flour
- a pinch of salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1 egg
- 200ml milk
- a knob of butter
- 70ml water

1. Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a large bowl.
2. Mix together the egg with milk and water.
3. Slowly add the egg mix into the flour and whisk continuously to make a smooth batter mix.
4. Melt the knob of butter and stir into the batter mix too.
5. Ready to cook! Grease a non-stick frying pan with butter, spoon enough batter to thinly coat the bottom of the pan. Cook and flip the crepe when the edge start to come away from the pan. Cook till both sides are golden.

Ideas: Mushroom, ham and cheese crêpe
Cook some mushrooms with butter in a frying pan. Pour away all the liquids once the mushooms are cooked. Stir in some ham and grated cheese (best is Gruyère). Spoon the filling onto a crêpe and fold into quarters. Bake in 180°C oven for 5 min and serve immediately.

Crostata

For 1 crostata:

- 125g unsalted butter
- 250g flour
- 80g sugar (white or brown)
- 2 egg yolks
- jam of choice

1. Mix room temperature butter and sugar into a cream.
2. Add the yolks to butter and mix evenly again.
3. Sift the flour and add all at once into the butter mixture.
4. Work with hands, mix the flour and butter into a neat dough.
5. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
6. Heat the oven to 180C, grease the baking tray with butter. Sprinkle a tb spoon of flour in the tray and shake the flour around to coat the tray. Discard excess flour at the end.
7. Cut 2/3 of dough and roll out thin enough to cover the whole base of the baking tray. Spoon over the jam of your choice (here I used figs jam).
8. Using the remaining 1/3 of dough, roll to long strips and lay them across the crostata. First make the outer ring then the central diameters before secondary lines.
9. Bake at 180C for approximately 30min till the dough looks slightly golden. Cool before serving!

Almond chocolate biscuits

To make 30 biscuits:

- unsalted butter 75g
- white sugar 25g
- brown sugar 25g
- double cream 25ml
- flour 90g
- cocoa powder 10g
- almond flakes 40-50g

1. As the diamond sablé, mix the room temperature butter into a cream like consistency and then add and mix the sugars.
2. Add double cream, the sifted flour + cocoa power, mix into a rough dough using your hand. Add the almond flakes last, mix evenly into a final biscuit dough.
3. Shape the dough into desired shape, here a long rectangle. Wrap with clim film and chill in freezer for at least 30min.
4. Preheat the oven to 170C. Cut the biscuit dough into ~1cm pieces. Bake for 17-20min at 170C.

Diamant sablé biscuits

60g unsalted butter
35g icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt
10ml double cream
85g flour (or 75g flour and 10g cocoa powder)
egg white
granular sugar

1. Mix the room temperature butter into a cream like consistency. Add the icing sugar, salt and double cream and mix with electric mixer again until everything is evenly blended.

2. Sift the flour and add to the butter-sugar mixture. Blend with mixer then use hands to bring the dough together into a ball.

3. On a floured surface, shape the dough into a rod with length 25-30cm and diameter of 3cm. Wrap in clingfilm and place in freezer for at least 1 hour to fix the shape.

4. Once completely frozen, remove the dough from freezer and brush with egg white. Put a thin layer of granular sugar in a plastic box, place the dough in the box and roll around to coat with sugar.

5. Cut to 1cm thickness discs and bake in a preheated oven at 170C for 20min.

Honey almond cake

Honey almond cake
Originally uploaded by chowen

100g almond flakes
50g ground almond
2 tbsp honey
50g butter, softened
100g flour
2g baking soda
3 eggs

1. Grease base of a square tin, line with baking paper
2. Beat the eggs with an electronic mixer with butter until light and fluffy
3. add ground almond and baking soda
4. add flour and mix it together (by hand) until blended well together
5. pour the mixture into the tin
6. sprinkle with almond flakes
7. bake in pre-heated oven at 200 degree for 50 mins
8. cool it on a rack and drizzle the honey

cardamom cake

cardamom cake
Originally uploaded by chowen

some orange zest
150g flour
200g plain yoghurt
150g sugar
5 cardamom pods, ground
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
2 freshly squeezed oranges for the syrup

orange syrup:
cook the orange juice with 30ml boiling water and 5g sugar

1. sieve the flour, mix in baking powder, ground cardamom and sugar
2. blend the egg and yoghurt together, fold in mixture 1.
3. add the orange zest, mix it well
4. divide the dough into muffin cups
5. place in a pre-heat oven 180c for 20 mins
6. spoon over the syrup and leave to cool

strawberry muffin

strawberry muffin
Originally uploaded by aevwang.