Good food and food company

I believe good food makes people happy. Good food and good company make for a fantastic night. And good food, good company and a great bottle/s of wine is always memorable. I started getting into baking when I wasn't the happiest in life, it acted as an escape for me and also gave me something to be passionate about and enjoy. Eating the food was also amazing, however did cause a fair bit of weight gain - so a lesson, moderation ;-).

I find my baking can make others happy. I am filled with pride when I present a layer cake to a friend or family member to celebrate their birthday. I love hearing the mmmmmmm from people when they take the first bite of a treat I've lovingly prepared. And I love when friends or family ask me to bake something for them, as it shows my passion has transferred to them and they want to share good food with their friends or family. (My photography is not great though, so I think that should be the next thing I work on...)

This recipe is for my uncle. He has shared many cakes and desserts with me and during the week asked if I could make something special for a lunch party he was throwing. Blueberries are just coming back into season here, so I decided on a blueberry sour cream cake with a white chocolate cream cheese icing. I was later told it was a hit!

More bananas (and Nutella)

Continuing on with today's banana theme, I have made some banana cupcakes with Nutella frosting (guess that also means I'm continuing the Nutella recipes). We've been taking advantage of the cheap bananas recently, but they start going brown before we get the chance to use them all, so have been freezing them. The freezer was getting a little full, so thought it was about time I baked something with bananas. 

Normally I double this cupcake recipe to make sure there's enough, but this banana version of my usual cupcakes turned out to be a bit bigger, so I made way too many. I'm trying to loose weight at the moment, so thought I'd get other people to eat these instead of me. I've frozen a few for my toddler's lunches this week, I also made an early morning call on my brother and his girlfriend, and finally took some to today's play date. They were pretty delicious, but if I kept them at home I'm sure I'd find a way to ration that because they have bananas and Nutella that it would be ok to eat them for breakfast... you see why I had to unload them :-).