I love cooking, as you know, but not having any scales, combined with a preference for healthy, savoury food has meant that I rarely bake. People tell me that baking is therapeutic, I find it powdery and messy. Until recently. You see I’ve found a strange method of baking that is most pleasing to my senses. It’s physical, soft and aromatic. Every time I bake in this way, I find it such an enjoyable experience that a few days later, I bake again, trying the method out with different ingredients. I love the way it feels to do something differently to how you’ve always done it. For example, what’s also occurred to me lately is that I can run around the park in the opposite direction… for the 12 years I have been running around Victoria Park, I’ve never thought to change direction – now everything is new! Small changes in behaviour and habit can have an enormous impact on the psyche. This is the lesson I now need to apply to the rest of my life: make small, important changes.
So here is my strange baking method: Instead of putting all the dry ingredients in a bowl first, I melt the butter, then add the sugar and the chia seeds. I take the pan off the heat, sieve in half the flour, slowly, stirring; add the egg yolks. I stir more. I add the mashed banana, then the other half of the flour. Stirring all the time. Finally, the egg whites. At this point, I use the whisk to beat it all together and create the desired fluffiness, before pouring into a greased baking tray. Bake as you would with any other cake, in a pre-heated oven at around 180 for about 45min. Serve with a dollop of bio-yoghurt and some organic honey. Chia seeds, by the way, are one of the healthiest foods around, high in Omega 3, fibre and protein.
Ingredients
3 bananas, mashed 100g white chia seeds 125g raw cane sugar 2 eggs (whites beaten) 125g butter 125g plain flour Yoghurt and honey to serve
