19 June 2015

Food stuff : Toddlers, Bananas and Cakes


It's Friday! So why not write a post all about bananas? And cakes? Surely that's what's on everyone's minds, no?

I love the idea of bananas. They're fruit, right, so they're healthy (yes, yes, naturally occurring sugars. Whatever). They're convenient, they're self-contained, they're filling. The taste- well, I can take it or leave it, personally, but all toddlers love them, yes?

Maybe.

So here's how things go with bananas in our house:

1 : Offer toddler a banana broken into perfect toddler-bite-sized pieces

"No. The pieces are too small. I want the whole one!"

Mama, ever self-sacrificing, eats offending banana pieces, and...

2 : Offers toddler whole banana

"NO! That's too big! I can't fit it in my mouth!"

3 : Achieve some kind of elusive sweet-spot of banana-piece-size...

NO! That banana is DIRTY!

Give up on whole idea of toddler eating the banana and provide a bag of yoghurt raisins instead.

Don't bother attempting to provide banana again for fear of incurring toddler wrath and so end up with a bowl of spotty, squidgy, overripe bananas (you know, they go from green to mush in a day) that no human being would really want to consume, so...

4 : Make banana bread

Hurrah! Something that involves using overripe bananas but somehow does not taste of bananas. Still consider it healthy as despite the butter and sugar, it still has about five bananas in it. My favourite recipe (minus the nuts for nut-hating Husband) is Felicity Cloake's recipe.

(Mostly this has worked fine for me, other than the day it spewed like a volcano in the oven and, of course, today, when for the first time it wouldn't turn out onto the cooling rack so I now have a, erm, two-part banana bread. Pants.)

Then realise I actually had eight- yes, eight- inedible bananas, which leaves three in the bowl, so feel forced, to avoid food wastage, to make...

5 : Banana and white chocolate chip muffins

Still healthy, surely? Despite the sugar, butter, whole milk and my sneaky addition of white chocolate chunks. The recipe I use seems to have disappeared online, so, briefly:

: 125g butter or margarine
: 150g caster sugar (I've used half this with overripe bananas as it's very sweet)
: 1 egg, beaten
: 2-3 overripe bananas
: 190g self-raising flour
: 60ml milk
: a scattering of white chocolate chips

: Heat oven to 190c
: Melt sugar and butter together. Mash bananas and stir in.
: Add the egg, flour and milk and fold together.
: Fill 12 muffin cases in a muffin pan and bake for 15-20 minutes.

(bonus step 6 : Eat banana bread and banana muffins for lunch since I've spent so long making them I didn't get to the supermarket and can't be bothered to even make a cheese sandwich. Hurrah again!)

Bananas. One day I'll learn and stop buying the ruddy things.

1 comment:

  1. This is an extremely accurate portrayal of our latest banana incident. The scene: M&S cafe. Monkey is eating asketti perfectly happily until she notices the banana stand annoyingly situated right in her eyeline.
    Monkey: "I want a banana" (repeat 15,000 times until asketti has all been eaten).
    We go to the banana stand. I try to give her the smallest banana, as she has never been known to eat more than three bites of one.
    Monkey, rifling through and probably bruising all bananas in the pile: "Not that one! I want that one! No, that one!" (obviously, the biggest banana she could lay her hands on).
    I am now one of those annoying parents who allow their children to pick up and eat things around the supermarket (obviously I pay for them later). So I peel it halfway down and give it to her. "NO! Take it off! I want it all off!"
    I take all of the skin off, dreading the inevitable mushy hand/brown stains on clothes later.
    30 seconds and one bite later: "I don't want it any more". Surprise!
    Where do you put a fully peeled, slightly mushy banana whilst wrangling a toddler and a buggy around the supermarket?
    SIGH.

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