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Dinner at mum's, a rather large cake and a trip to the airport.

Saturday afternoon, T. produced a magnificent hummingbird cake. Once it was iced with cream cheese, flecked with toasted coconut and topped with pecans, it was only about as big as the Sydney Opera House. The cake was our contribution for Saturday night, which was ...

Dinner at Family Central - my mother's house - for my youngest brother's birthday. (Thirty-seven? I still think of him as barely into his twenties, if not an actual teenager.) He and his partner recently announced they were expecting ... and they already know it is a girl. If this family baby boom continues we will all be needing larger houses.

It was a nice evening. Various brothers, sisters and nieces were in attendance. My sister-in-law had flown in from Alice Springs to stay overnight at Mum's before her Sunday morning flight to California for a conference in Santa Cruz. Tomorrow mum will fly to Alice Springs to mind junior while his mum is in the US. Her husband - my older brother - works odd hours at Alice Springs Hospital, which serves about a million square kilometres of central Australia.

The table groaned beneath the usual buffet items: casseroles - one a simple beef and vegetable, another a kind of chili and corn; a chicken lasagne; a couple of vegetarian casseroles, fragrant with curried and spiced beans and potatoes, etc; a platter of grilled vegetables - eggplant and the like and a simple but particularly delicious curried zucchini side made by sister-in-law #2. I think there was a rice dish as well. I didn't get around the whole table, the evening only lasted several hours, there just wasn't time.

My mother, of course, sat down for probably two entire minutes all night and spent the rest of the time trying to force people to eat more food. Meanwhile, baby Amali sat on various knees and gazed at proceedings with big blue eyes. Then, a bit of a cry and off for a feed and a sleep. Four months old.

The hummingbird cake was a hit, but there was stiff competition from a massive wine trifle and an apple crumble with pouring cream and vanilla ice-cream.

I drove my mother and sister-in-law to Tullamarine Airport at seven o'clock on a dark, cold Sunday morning. It was busier than Bourke Street during sale time. Where on earth are all these people going?

Hummingbird cake.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line one large springform tin or two smaller tins.

Sift 2 cups self-raising flour, a half teaspoon of bi-carbonate of soda and a half teaspoon of ground cinnamon into a mixing bowl. Add a cup of brown sugar, half a cup of shredded coconut and half a cup of chopped pecans and stir to combine.

In another bowl, combine two lightly-beaten eggs, two large ripe bananas and three-quarters of a cup of oil. Fold this into the dry ingredients along with a tin of crushed pineapple, well-drained.

Pour or spoon batter into pan(s). Bake 45 minutes for the single pan or about 30 for the twin pans - check with a skewer.

For the cream cheese icing, beat 100g softened butter, 200g cream cheese, a teaspoon of vanilla essence and two cups icing sugar until smooth. Carefully slice cake into two sections (or use two pans which we didn't have), spread icing through middle, replace top and spread more icing over entire cake, decorate with toasted coconut and whole pecans.

Comments

  1. Oooo, that sounds good. I'll have to give it a try.

    Do you know why one would add baking soda to self-rising flour, BTW? I thought that it already had leavening in it. Self-rising is sold here in the States but I don't think it is used all that often.

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  2. It was good, Dr Alice!

    The whole baking thing is a mystery to me - I can only presume that the amount of leavening agent in SR flour is set at a nominal amount and that the creators of various recipes sometimes want more of a leavening action. Often recipes call for half regular flour and half SR, with the addition of baking soda.

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  3. the curried zucchini is of a definate interest, it,s a veg that i love, usually i just make ratatouille, or something similiar or oven bake them.

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  4. Barry, there is a great zucchini recipe that I have found involving just zucchini with butter, onions and a little paprika - I will post it soon.

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