Basic skills in cooking – very basic skills...

So, as promised, I attempted my first culinary masterpiece today – a banana cake.  Okay okay, so this is not Gordan Ramsey-standard cooking, but everyone has to start somewhere! And let’s face it – it’s a skill level or two above mastering gauging the correct useage of water so as not to spoil a pot noodle...

Okay, so I may have pinched this from the Jamie Oliver website - but mine looked pretty similar!

Here’s the recipe I found for it in case some of you budding chefs (/some of my fellow catastrophic novices) out there want to try it:

125g butter

150g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

3 ripe bananas

190g self-raising flour

60 ml milk

1. Mash bananas (I’d advise investing in a masher rather than a fork like me...took bloody ages...)

2. Grease and line a cake tine

3. Melt butter, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat

4. Remove from heat, add bananas and mix well

5. Add egg, mix well

6. Stir in flour and milk

7. Bake at 150˚c (fan oven) for 35 mins (use oven gloves when removing cake from oven...just kidding, even I knew that one!)

I have to say, aside from getting caked in flour and banana juice, (and having my mum keep a watchful eye over me – i think she was scared about me demolishing her kitchen) I actually found this surprisingly easy – I think baking is definitely the way to go if you’re fairly new to cooking! I did enjoy the cake, but thought it was maybe a tiny bit bland and a little on the dry side, so maybe add a some more milk (that’s a bit of a guess). For the majority of the population who are more experienced than me, I’d suggest adding a topping of some sort for a bit more flavour.

Overall – possibly not a resounding success, but not a bad start to my cooking foray!