OBAMA rocks! cakes

What an amazing US election result last night! To celebrate Obama's second term in office, I decided to make something with ingredients that spelled out OBAMA (a habit I've got into what with my ABC cake (Apple, Blueberry and Cinnamon), BMW bread (Banana, Mango and Walnut), and more recent BANG cake (Banana, Amaretto, Nut and Ginger)...). These started life as cookies but I soon realised that they tasted just like the rock cakes my mum used to make with us on Sunday afternoons as kids. So rather than flattening small scoops of the dough into cookie shapes, I instead dolloped big scoops onto the baking tray and left them to come out as rock cakes. I made one dough but split it into two batches before adding the different OBAMA fruit and nuts. The first batch contained Oats, Blueberries, Apple, Macadamia and Almonds. The second batch contained Oats, Banana, Apricot, Mango and Almonds. The result: OBAMA rocks! [cakes]

BMW (Banana Mango Walnut) Bread

Normally if I make a vegan recipe it's a deliberate attempt to provide cake to vegan friends. This one was a happy coincidence that looking for a recipe to use up some very ripe bananas and mangoes I came across a recipe from Joy the Baker which was dairy-free - and turned out to be so good I'll definitely be using it again regardless of who I'm baking for! Normally I'd also take a photo of a whole cake - but this was so delicious I didn't have a chance to get my camera out before half of it had been scoffed! 

Mango bread

After our sweet taco dessert for Mexican night yesterday, we had quite a lot of puréed mango leftover.  I'd recently bought some really cute mini loaf cases that I've been desperate for an excuse to use - and this was the perfect opportunity: mango bread!  I didn't have any eggs (and was too hungover to stagger to the shop to buy some!) so this is an eggless recipe - I used walnut oil instead, but I think any flavourless/ vegetable oil would do.  (I'd also almost run out of self-raising flour, so this has a mix of both that an plain, plus bicarb as well as baking powder - if you've got the right things and no hangover, use all one kind of flour and the right type of powder to go with it!)  They came out beautifully - perfect for a cup of tea at the end of a hungover Sunday afternoon.