Cheese and Bacon Buttermilk Bread

Buttermilk makes a tasteful base to a savoury bread. With undertones of bacon, cheese and onion, this loaf is quickly prepared. It's a great bread to serve at a braai or barbecue and is bound to be a family favourite.

Ingredients:
375ml wholemeal flour
250ml cake flour
10ml baking powder
2ml bicarbonate of soda
10ml sugar
5ml salt
5ml English mustard powder
2ml cayenne pepper
50g butter
80 ml grated Parmesan cheese
5 slices streaky bacon, crispy cooked and crumbled
1 egg, lightly beaten
500ml buttermilk
10ml Worcestershire sauce
2 spring onions, chopped fine.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 160C.
Mix together the flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, mustard and cayenne pepper. Rub the butter into the mixture until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Fold in the cheese and the bacon, reserving a little of each to go on the top of the loaf.
Combine the egg, buttermilk and Worcestershire sauce and blend. Mix into the dry ingredients.
Pour the mixture into a buttered loaf tin, which has been lined with baking paper. Sprinkle the chopped spring onion, reserved cheese and bacon on top of the loaf.
Bake for one hour. To test for readyness, knock on the top of the loaf; it should sound hollow, or test with a metal skewer pushed into the middle of the loaf. When the loaf is cooked it should come out clean.
Cool before slicing and buttering to serve.

Banana Bread

Banana bread is a favourite tea bread in South Africa, so easy to make that I've been baking this since I first put on an apron at the age of twelve. Even here in the UK, bananas are cheep and easy to come by and, to top it all, they ripen so quickly, there isn't much else you can do with them when they are over ripe but use them in a cake, pudding or dessert like this. This mixture could also be used for a steamed pudding, but then I'd rather leave out the nuts and put them in a honey or syrup sauce to serve hot with the pudding.

Ingredients:
75ml vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 ripe bananas
zest of 1 lemon
juice of half a lemon
125g light brown sugar
375ml flour
15ml baking powder
5ml salt
50-70g walnuts, chopped

75-80ml milk

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a blender, blend the oil, eggs, bananas, lemon zest and lemon juice until the mixture is fairly smooth.

In a mixing bowl, mix the sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and walnuts until homogeneously bended. Make a well in the centre and add the banana mixture. Fold into the dry ingredients to make a blended batter.

Lastly, add enough milk into the batter to make it flowing but not too runny.

Put the batter in a greased loaf pan that has also been lined with baking paper, which slightly overlaps the side of the pan. Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes, checking if it is done with a metal skewer poked into the centre of the loaf. The skewer should come out clean when the loaf is cooked through.

When done, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before lifting from the pan using the overlapping sides of the baking paper. It should come out clean.

When cool enough, remove the paper and serve sliced with butter. If it is too warm the butter will melt into the slices and make them soggy. I prefer to allow the loaf to cool to about room temperature before slicing and buttering.

Yum yum yum!

Cook's Tip

In using vegetable oil and/or bananas as I have done in this recipe you can avoid using butter or margarine.