Teabread and Cookies

Inspired by all that incredible bread making in last week's
Bake Off, I wanted to have a go, too. I had Chelsea buns in mind, but
the rest of the family wanted lemon squares. I couldn't quite decide
what to bake: lemon squares? Chelsea buns? Then I spied some
over ripe bananas in the fruit bowl and decided to make something
completely different. So there's no bread making this week, nor any lemony bake, what we have instead is Mary Berry's Banana and
 Honey teabread.

This turned out to be a good one to bake. The girls really enjoyed
helping out. There were plenty for them to get involved in- mashing
 the bananas,  rubbing the butter in with the flour and afterwards,
brushing the top of the cooked teabread with warmed honey.

I like that the girls had fun making this so no regrets about the

Chelsea buns. The teabread itself wasn't bad either. It's more dense

 than our usual banana loaf and full of interesting flavours with

 ground nutmeg, lemon zest and honey in the mix. 

We didn't have sugar cubes or nibbed sugar for the topping and
used demerara sugar instead. I always like a sugary, crunchy top
 and the demerara was a good substitute I think.

We all loved this teabread. It was gone the next day so we had
to do some more baking. I decided to try a new cookie recipe-
White Chocolate and Pecan Nut from The Hummingbird Bakery
Cookbook . Well, a version of it really. We couldn't find any pecans
 in the shops so ours turned out as White Chocolate and Hazelnut cookies.

I'm sure they'd taste differently with pecans but we're happy
with these. They're soft and chewy and not too sweet. It's one
of those recipes where you have to freeze the dough first before
baking and that was a bit too long to wait for two excited girls. But
we'll make these again and next time with the pecan nuts hopefully.

Did you enjoy this week's Bake Off?   I thought the wind torte (?)
they had to make in the technical challenge looked so dainty
and pretty. I hope some brides-to-be out there were watching
and make it their wedding cake.

Have a great weekend everyone!


PS. I still haven't given up on the Chelsea buns!