Fire, wind and rainy day baking

I woke up on Saturday morning to near gale force winds, rain and the really sad news about the fire at the Glasgow School of Art. The fire took hold in the iconic Macintosh building, designed by Charles Rennie Macintosh. It is a wonderful place, being both a working part of the art school and an historic building. Completed in 1909, it is a unique example of both Macintosh’s work and the style of the period. Luckily, no-one was hurt, and subsequent news has said that 90% of the building is structurally fine and that most of the art works have been recovered. I cannot imagine how the students who were completing works for the forthcoming final show can be feeling.

Library, Glasgow School of Art

Back in Wellington, the weather definitely dictated a stay at home day. Food shopping and cleaning out of the way, I set about making a banana loaf to use up bananas left over from last week (I seem to be the only person in the house eating bananas which are not even a fruit I particularly like). I used a nice, simple recipe from my Edmonds cook book. The original recipe is in NZ cups. You can find a conversion chart here to ounces and grams.

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a 22cm loaf tin. Sift 1.75 cups self-raising glour, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and a pinch of salt into a bowl. Mix in 1/2 cup sugar. In another bowl, beat 2 eggs with 1/4 cup of milk. Melt 75g butter and add this to the eggs and milk along with 2 mashed bananas. Mix this liquid mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined. Spoon into the loaf tin and bake for 45 to 55 minutes depending on your oven. Leave for 10 minutes before turning out to cool on a wire rack.

Banana loaf in the tin