Have Your Cake. . .

We celebrated my boy's birthday a while back. He loves cars, and we had a car party, so I made a racetrack cake. It's actually really similar to the one I did last year. I tried a chocolate zucchini (courgette) cake, which went over pretty well, but I wasn't pleased with it. I felt it came out a little too dry. I will stick with plain zucchini cake from now on.

The recipe was meant for a 9x13 inch pan. I made two batches, and split them between four 8" round cake pans. I cut the edge off one side of each cake, so they would sit together nicely. I made a frosting of cream (soft) cheese, yogurt, and icing sugar, which turned out quite nice. This was used between the cakes and on the outside. It didn't need to look pretty, because I then covered the cake with the grass and track. The track was laid first using crushed Oreo cookies (without the cream filling). Then I covered the rest of the cake with green coloured coconut. The cars are foil wrapped chocolate.

Since I wouldn't recommend the chocolate zucchini cake recipe I used, I thought I would include a couple of cake recipes that I really do like.

The first is a banana cake recipe I got from Eating Well. When I make the cake, I don't ever make the frosting that goes with it. This is such a moist cake that I don't think it needs a frosting. I did try the frosting recipe for a cake last year, and it didn't quite turn out. So here is the recipe for the cake alone. It calls to put it into 2 9" round cake tins, but I just use one 9x13" pan, and it turns out fine. You may need to adjust the cooking time a bit.

Banana Cake

• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas, (about 3), plus 2 whole bananas, divided
• 1/2 cup nonfat buttermilk, (see Tip)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour, (see Ingredient Note)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. To prepare cake: Preheat oven to 375°F. Coat two 9-inch round cake pans with cooking spray and line the bottoms with wax paper or parchment paper.
2. Whisk eggs, 1 cup sugar and oil in a large bowl. Stir in mashed bananas, buttermilk and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Add to the banana mixture and fold in just until blended. Divide the batter between the pans.
3. Bake the cake until the tops spring back when touched lightly, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

Apple Cinnamon Harvest Muffins

We've had a beautiful, warm September, almost like an Indian Summer, as they say in the States. Last week the weather turned a bit colder, and Saturday was a beautiful sunny autumn day. We were having a service project with our church, rolling hay bales, building a hay rick, painting and clearing. It was a perfect day for a muffin that reminded me of autumn.

I don't like my muffins very sweet, so this recipe doesn't call for a lot of sugar. I also used a combination of cooking (tart) and dessert (sweet) apples. You may want to add more sugar if you like your muffins sweet, or you are using very tart apples.

(The picture doesn't really do these muffins justice, it was taken with my mobile phone.)

Apple Cinnamon Harvest Muffins

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups plain/all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups wholemeal/whole-wheat flour

2 cups oats (porridge, quick or old fashioned rolled oats will do)

1/2 cup light brown sugar

2 Tbs baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:

2 cups apples, grated

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz) milk

2 eggs, beaten

2/3 cup (1/4 pint) vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C, grease two muffin tins. In a medium bowl, mix together the grated apple and dark brown sugar, set aside.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, breaking up any clumps of brown sugar.

3. Add the rest of the wet ingredients to the apple and sugar mixture, until well blended.

4. Make a well in the dry ingredients, and add the wet ingredients in the center. Mix the two together, just until blended. (Do not over mix, or the muffins will be tough).

5. Divide the batter evenly between the 24 muffin cases, and bake for 20-30 minutes. Muffins should be golden brown, and a knife/toothpick, when inserted should come out clean.