'Yes! We have no bananas.' 'No, actually we have *literally* hundreds of bananas.'

Dear Readers,

As someone who actually *dislikes* bananas and would never dream of eating one raw (is it the phallic implication or just the texture or both?), I seem to find myself in the perplexing position of *always* having some bananas, and, what's more, they always seem to be on the cusp of liquidification. Literally. (The  dictionary-definition-minded reader will now be wondering which definition I mean of 'literally' here - see THIS ARTICLE for more information.) 

I have already brought you one 'what to do with over-ripe bananas' recipe, but in honesty it was a bit of a faff to make, so this is a far simpler option and, indeed, one I made this morning in no time at all! 

Ingredients: 175g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

125g unsalted butter melted

150g sugar (whatever you have in works - granulated is fine for this recipe) 

2 large free range eggs

However many ripe bananas you are trying to get rid of mashed up (normally 3/4 is the right amount)

Vanilla extract

100g / however much dark chocolate you have cut into small chips 

First things first: Line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper and melt the butter in a saucepan. One of the easiest things about this recipe is that it only involves stirring, so you don't have to worry about your butter being straight from the fridge or anything like that because you're melting it anyway. 

Pour the melted butter on top of the sugar and beat together. 

Then beat in the eggs one by one. The mixture will thicken slightly and look something like this: 

 Then add the mashed bananas, dash or two of vanilla extract and stir it all together.

Mix the flour, baking powder and bicarb together very thoroughly - WARNING: if you don't mix in the baking powder and bicarb properly you might end up with a soapy flavour towards the bottom of the cake which is never a good thing - and then stir into the bowl about a third at a time. Stir it in well. 

The mixture will be pale and fairly thick but still thoroughly pourable. It's a very different kind of mix to a sponge cake - this is more like a batter - so don't expect it to be anything other than pourable. 

Stir your chocolate chips into the mix...

Et voila! Pour/scrape/splodge into the loaf tin and the cake is ready to go into the oven at 170 degrees for about an hour (fan assisted - prob an hour and a quarter conventional) - keep checking in the last 5/10 minutes by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean the cake is ready.

I think you're supposed to leave it to cool before cutting it, but I prefer banana loaf hot from the oven and have convinced myself that it is a great breakfast substitute as it has fruit in it. (Ahem.)

I could never drink a glass of milk, but I had fun styling the cake for this photo with a little glass of milk for a pleasingly retro feel. 

Until the next time,
Silver Whimsy x

'full stop.' Brick Lane's finest!

Dearest Readers of Confessions,                

Well! It has been an age, has it not, and yet so much cake has been both baked and consumed over these months - what excuse could I possibly have for not keeping you up to date with all the latest in, ummm, cake-eating and coffee-drinking? Well, aside from Jubilantics with the SIBF which mostly consisted of using gold card and double-sided sticky-tape to transform our ever-suffering cat Princess Tildred of Cumberland into HRH (see photo below) I have been busily making cake for young people as of yet uninitiated in Whimsenomics which, incidentally, appears to have taken over Europe. 

But moving swiftly on... I have returned and today come with news of a fantastic and utterly unpretentious cafe on (be prepared for a shock)  Brick Lane! Yes! It is possible for a cafe thereabouts not to be pretentious and, indeed, to be deemed worthy of a review from Whimsy! 

 The SIBF and I were escaping the Jubilee (having re-enacted the flotilla at a friends suggestion by floating Tildred on a tray in the bath) by attending an amazing FRIENDS gig at Rough Trade. But the lure of cake was too much and, after much to-ing and fro-ing we stumbled upon FULL STOP., roughly mid-way down Brick Lane. How could we resist a beautiful black-board featuring the incantation below...?

 On entering 'full stop.' the first thing one must comment on is the beautiful de-marcation of space consisting of the gorgeous vintage conservatory feel of the area towards the shop-front and the rather more sultry, sofas n papers n your dream of a place you could hide from a torrential downpour if stuck in the middle of London, towards the back.

 I was rather taken with these divine roses,
and struck by the whimsical beauty of it all! 

The next fabulous thing about 'full stop.' is that they have four variations of hot chocolate on the menu! Dearest Readers! Thant is not one, not two, not three, but four different types. I may not be brilliant at maths, but I do know that that is approximately four times more sub-genres of hot chocolate than your archetypal cafe! We went for the straightforward 'milk chocolate' variant and, oh, the joy to Whimsy when it arrived in a small glass with perfectly formed creamy froth on top AND a LONG SPOON for better drinking, stirring and sipping!

We also ordered the 'FRESHLY BAKED!' banana loaf and I was pleased to be offered it toasted - a delightful proposition on such a miserable day. In honesty, whilst I *did* enjoy eating it, I also did find it rather peculiar but not in a bad way - just in a is this completely cooked/isn't it/how much cinnammon (sp?!) is in this/what is in this/how do you make a cake with a crust and a squidgy centre?! kind of way.

Well, with that it is time to say tootle-pip for now and also to give you advance warning that TSWCS 3.0 will be taking place this year on July 1st in the usual place... 

Until next time, I'll leave you with some Brick Lane Bunting! 

Fondest Fondant Fancies, 

Silver Whimsy x  

PS Why didn't I ever start up my bespokebunting.com website? I would surely have made a fortune by now!