Dates Balls ~ A guest post by Reshmi

Today is a special day for Cook like Priya, this is the first guest post by my dear friend Reshmi Mahesh. A week back I happen to ask Reshmi to do a guest post to feed my blog as I would be busy with a house change and she immediately said yes and I was very excited. 

Banana Date Cake/ Loaf ~ baking for beginners

Last night I tried out the Banana Date cake and to be honest it came out really well. My husband was surprised and happy at how it turned out, he gave it a 5* :-). Its a good recipe to try out if you are a beginner at baking. 

If you are a beginner in baking it a must do recipe. You could also use a loaf tin to bake it, the choice is yours.

Simple, easy and with ingredients available in anyone's pantry. So what are you waiting for? 

Recipe Source ~ Nags (modified using dates)

Ingredients needed :

1-2 ripe yellow banana (I used 2 since the bananas were quite small)

2 eggs

1/4 cup white powdered sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup white flour/ maida 

1 tsp vanilla essence

Couple of dates (you can use any nuts or raisins, depending on what you like)

Method

• Keep the butter out in room temperature and mash the bananas in a separate bowl, just before you start beating the ingredients. 
• Beat the sugar and butter such that the sugar entirely dissolves in the butter. 
• Add the 2 eggs and whisk till the two combine.
• Add the banana mash and beat in low setting until all the lumps disappear
• Now add the vanilla essence and the white flour, combine using a wooden spoon, do not whisk at this point and later add the dates/ any nut of your choice.
• Later set it in a greased cake tin and put it on a preheated oven for 180 degree/ fan grill for 40-45 mins until a skewer inserted in center comes clean.
• Once done take the cake pan and place it on a cooling rack for 10 mins with the pan. Later flip the cake and let it cool down to room temperature. 
• Slice into pieces and enjoy the cake.

Notes 

- Powder the sugar and then measure,  sugar can be adjusted based on the sweetness of the banana

- Always sieve the flour before adding to the whisked mixture, while sieving add a pinch of salt

- While setting the mixture in a cake tin, tap it a couple of times so that there is no air pockets in the cake