I don’t know if you can call mushing a few ingredients together a recipe, but today, that’s how I’m gonna roll. I’m always looking for ways to use up overripe bananas, because even though I have a monkey for a child, there always seems to be a couple left over in the fruit bowl at the end of the week. I’m a big fan of making banana cake, but I wanted something a little more baby-friendly, as apart from the odd treat, I try to avoid giving Byron any unnecessary sugar or salt.

Fruity Ice Lollies
Makes approximately 6 lollies

Ingredients
2 ripened bananas
200g raspberries
juice of 1 orange

001 | Place all your ingredients in a bowl
002 | Mash with a fork
003 | Put in ice lolly molds and place in the freezer

See? I told you it wasn’t much of a recipe, as it’s so easy! It’s one of those things where you can chuck in any fruit you fancy. They went down a treat with me and Byron liked the taste although his face didn’t look too sure about the temperature!

Ain’t nothing I love more than cake. Except, maybe, a Galaxy Ripple. Or a Twirl. But, seriously— cake is good. Cake mixed with biscuit, is NEXT LEVEL enjoyment! There’s many variations of Oreo cupcakes floating around, but I’ve already wow-ed my husband and my sister with these surprise cupcakes, so I thought I’d share the recipe so you can leave your loved ones gobsmacked too!

Surprise Oreo Cupcakes

Ingredients
100g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
140g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
40g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
120ml milk
1 egg
¼tsp of vanilla flavouring or extract
12 whole Oreos

For the buttercream:
3 Oreos, crushed
600g icing sugar
200g unsalted butter
80ml whole milk

Baking
You can use any chocolate cupcake recipe for this, as long as it’s not too rich— but this is my fav!

NOTE: If you’re really pushed for time, you can grab a box of ready-to-bake mix instead! Go for the vanilla cupcake mix and add a tablespoon of cocoa powder to it, rather than the chocolate cupcake mix, as this one usually comes with ready-to-make chocolate buttercream icing and we just want plain old vanilla!

001 | Preheat your oven to 170°C
002 | Mix the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder and butter to a sandy consistency
003 | Whisk milk, egg and vanilla in a jug
004 | Slowly combine with the sandy mixture
005 | Place a spoonful into each cupcake case, place an oreo on top and then cover with another spoonful or two of the cake mix
006 | Cook in the centre of the oven for approx 20 mins, until the sponge springs back when you touch it. (Unfortunately the ol’ skewer trick won’t work with these!) I used a cupcake maker and they only took 10 minutes!

For the buttercream:
001 | Beat the icing sugar and butter until combined
002 | Slowly beat in the milk
003 | Stir in crushed Oreos
004 | Pipe on to your cakes when cooled!

We spend most Sunday afternoons at my mum and dad’s and nine times out of ten, that means eating half a cake my mum’s made that morning! They’re all delicious, but this banana cake she makes, is something else; the outside is slightly crunchy with demerara sugar and the inside, so light, moist and well, banana-ery! It’s especially good when it’s still warm.

Easy Banana Cake

Ingredients
125g butter
150g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
190g self-raising flour
60ml milk
1 tbsp demerara sugar

Prepping & Baking
001 | Grease and line your cake tin and set the oven to 170ºc / gas mark 3
002 | Melt the butter and sugar in a pan, over a medium heat
003 | Remove from the heat and mix in the bananas
004 | Add the egg and mix well
005 | Stir in the flour and milk
006 | Pour into your tin and sprinkle over the demerara sugar
007 | Place in the middle of the oven for 35 minutes (or until a skewer or knife comes out dry) and leave to cool
008 | Eat. That. Shit.