With age, comes keys
It wasn’t that long ago that all I owned were two, three keys at the most. One to open the front door, and another to access the letter box. Today as I was leaving to do some grocery shopping, I reached into my bag to grab my keys, and realised that the bunch had grown into a full-blown jail warden’s set of keys. Eleven keys, at last count, connected by chains and sub-chains. Not to mention a special pass I have that allows access to another key for work. About 70% of the keys on that chain are work related, as I currently spend my daylight hours in a building with pointy bits that people love taking pictures in front of, and which requires some security presence. Usually when I arrive at work each morning, a pass gets me through security. The same pass is then used to retrieve a key to open the main kitchen door. A small key unlocks my locker where I proceed to get changed. From there, I get to my kitchen and unlock 6 bench fridges, 1 freezer, 2 standing fridges (if I need to use them) and the main coolroom. Each morning I fumble with the keys, trying to remember through a sleep clouded mind, which belongs to which lock. There’s been talk that they want to get the door to my kitchen padlocked also. A whole bunch of bananas went missing overnight once, and I guess they’re worried about all that couverture chocolate I have on my shelves.

With age, comes jars and tubes
Where once I was happy enough using super-duper-market sorbolene, I now have three jars and two squeezy tubes of moisturising cream – all specialising in various parts of the body – and two bottles of cleanser in the shower. The jars are lined up in my cupboard like soldiers fighting against the war on ageing. The catalyst was a visit many months ago to Nina, who gasped at my audacious use of soap and sorbolene. Under the harsh revealing light of her overhead lamp, she was utterly horrified to hear that I used soap on my face. Sharp intake of breath?, I replied. She obliged.

So now I’ve actually started obsessing about face creams. Nut oils and various extracts you’d happily find on a plate, crushed to a colourless paste which I smear liberally day and night. Compounds and botanical cocktails to stem the ageing process. To smother the fine lines. To tame the dry landscape of skin on hands, face, legs. I’ve tried things I wouldn’t normally – a facial masque that upon application dried so firm I couldn’t smile or wag an eyebrow. So this is what botox is like!

With age, comes age
My boss told me yesterday that he was going to have laser surgery in a couple of weeks to remove varicose veins in his legs. He showed me the ones around his ankles; thick purple-blue lines forking around bruised skin. Along with back pain and scarred arms, these are the product of years spent standing all day in a kitchen. I haven’t felt any twinges in my knees or back yet, but there are some days when I feel tired the moment I get out of bed. On these days, I wonder about the percentage of cooks who end up with physical pain in their later years.

I was watching an episode of Marco Pierre White’s Hell’s Kitchen, in which celebrities are thrown into a kitchen environment, most without much prior knowledge about cooking. One celebrity, looking a little tired and teary, is later quoted as saying, “I don’t know how they do it”. How do they do it? Why do they do it? What do chefs get out of the long hours, the back breaking labour, the intense services? Can’t say I know the answer, but there’s always a little part of me, even after a very long day, who can’t imagine doing or wanting to do, anything else.

I still remember my first cupcake. It came from a much loved Ladybird children’s cookbook, alongside recipes for banana flummery, gingerbread men, flapjacks and a jam sponge. There were savoury recipes as well, such as stuffed eggs and welsh rarebit, but I think it’s quite telling that I remember the sweet recipes more clearly, and more fondly. The cake was plain, about half the size of what current cupcakes are, and topped with nothing more than a single glace cherry. The chewy glistening cherry was like the prize on top of the miniature cake.

In a similar simplistic vein, for Laurie’s Cupcake Hero event, I adapted the Orange and Poppyseed Bars recipe from The Crabapple Bakery cookbook to tie in with Laurie’s chosen theme for September : Lime. A light and fluffy cupcake bursting with fresh lime flavours, gets nothing more than a simple lime frosting made from lime juice, more zest, a bit of butter and icing sugar, with a skirt of poppyseeds around its edge. In the original version, the cakes are also topped with sugar flowers, which you can also include if you’re in a decorating mood.

Lime and Poppyseed Cupcakes :
(makes 30)

2/3 cup poppy seeds
1 1/4 cup milk
3 3/4 cup plain flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
300g softened unsalted butter
zest 5 limes
2 1/2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla paste

(+ lime frosting and extra poppyseeds to decorate)

Soak poppy seeds in the milk for at least half an hour. Preheat oven to 170’C. Line muffin trays with cupcake papers.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, cream the butter for 1-2 minutes. Add the lime zest and beat for 1 minute. Add the sugar a third at a time, beating well after each addition, until all the sugar is incorporated and the mixture is light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Add the vanilla paste and beat until combined.

Alternate between beating in a third of the flour mixture and the milk mix, until thoroughly combined with the creamed mixture. Spoon this resulting mixture into the cupcake cases, filling each about 3/4 full.

Bake for about 18 minutes or until a fine skewer inserted comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack before frosting.

This week’s WHB is hosted by Katerina of Daily Unadventures in Cooking. Nothing like celebrating the 100th WHB with a bit of cake. My contribution is packed with bananas.

Being a fruit that is high in potassium, fibre and various vitamins, my parents always encouraged us to eat bananas when we were growing up. If not a simple freshly peeled banana, then my favourites were banana fritters and banana split sundaes. I haven’t had a banana split in ages, but do still love banana fritters served with vanilla ice-cream. I also like making banana bread at home when I get a chance to.

The problem I find is (and I hope I’m not alone on this one), when I want to make banana bread, I have no bananas in the house. So, I go to the shops and get some bananas, but of course, they’re bright yellow, and most definitely not ripe enough to be made into a batter. That’s when you have to play the waiting game, for the bananas to start developing their speckled, mottled brown appearance, which would signify their readiness to be transformed into wonderful fragrant baked goods. (A tip I learnt from someone to speed this process up, is to place the bananas together in a bag of uncooked rice. Apparently the rice helps ripen the bananas. I did this once, and am not sure how much it did actually help, but did love the amazing smell that lifted into the air whenever I opened the bag to check on the fruit). But often I find, by the time the bananas are at their peak of ripeness, I haven’t actually got the time to bake the bread! So they sit in the kitchen, languishing and languishing until one day they are so dark and shrivelled and starting to form a banana planet for fruit flies, that I have to chuck them out. So, no banana bread, and a completely fruitless exercise.

Sometimes, I get lucky with the timing, and that’s when I get to whip out the bowl and wooden spoon and make banana bread. Everyone I’m sure has their favourite banana cake/bread recipe. I’m no different, but I recently discovered this recipe by Belinda Jeffery, and it could well be my new favourite. The loaf has a wonderful caramel tone to it, and is amazingly moist and full of flavour. It also is, I might add, reasonably healthy and very easy to make. And while I changed the ingredients in my bread to suit my tastes, I’m including the original recipe for your perusal, and urge you to try it out for yourself. You won’t be disappointed!

Sticky banana, pecan and date loaf :
(recipe from Mix & Bake by Belinda Jeffery)

185g spelt flour or plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
120g roasted walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped
220g pitted dates, roughly chopped
220g castor sugar
2 eggs
125ml (1/2 cup) light olive oil
3 very large ripe bananas, mashed (about 310ml)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
sunflower seeds or pepitas or both, for topping

1. Preheat your oven to 180’C. Butter a large loaf tin (about 23x13x6cm) and dust it with flour. Set aside.

2. Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt into a medium-sized bowl and whisk them together with a balloon whisk for 45 seconds (or you can just sift them into the bowl instead). Add the nuts and dates and toss them about so they’re thoroughly coated in the flour mixture.

3. Put the sugar, eggs and oil into another bowl and whisk them together for 1 – 2 minutes or until they’re light and creamy. Add the mashed banana and vanilla extract and whisk them in for another 30 seconds or until the mixture is fairly smooth (don’t worry that it’s not completely smooth – there will be some little lumps of banana in it).

4. Stir the dry ingredients into the banana mixture until they form a somewhat sloppy batter. Scrape this into the prepared tin and sprinkle some seeds on top.

5. Bake for about 1 hour or until the top of the loaf is springy and a fine skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool the loaf in the tin on a wire rack for 10 minutes, before turning it out onto the rack to cool completely. It keeps well in the fridge for about 5 days.