Aunt Kate’s Kitchen: Go bananas for these baking recipes from the 1930s

Forget banana bread, we’ve found some new ways to bake with the fruit, straight from Aunt Kate’s Kitchen to yours.

If you’re stuck with a bunch of bananas and you’ve already maxed out your banana bread skills, why not try out the recipes below?

Aunt Kate was the “original domestic goddess” who wrote recipes for The People’s Journal and The People’s Friend from the 1880s to the 1960s. These recipes come from her Baking Book 1933 and we have tried, where possible, to convert them into today’s measurements.

For more inspiration from Aunt Kate, take a look at her previous recipes here.

Banana fingers

Ingredients

• Small bananas
• Raspberry juice
• Lemon juice
• Cake crumbs
• Puff pastry (if you want to make your own, try this Aunt Kate recipe here)

Method

1. Choose some small bananas, peel them and sprinkle them with a little lemon juice.
2. Then spread them with raspberry jam, and roll them in the cake crumbs.
3. Take some puff pastry, roll it out thinly and stamp it out in oval-shaped pieces, a little larger than each banana.
4. Lay a banana in the centre of each pastry piece, brush around the edges with a little water, fold over and press the edges together.
5. Brush over with some egg white and dredge with sugar.
6. Bake in a hot oven (approx 200ºC) for 15 minutes, then serve either hot or cold.

Banana Pie

Ingredients

• Short crust pastry (if you want to make your own, try this Aunt Kate recipe here)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• A pinch of salt
• Lemon juice
• 2 bananas
• 2 egg whites
• Almond essence
• Whipped cream

Method

1. Roll out the pastry thinly and line a greased sandwich tin with it.
2. Decorate the edge with an extra strip of pastry, fluting it neatly. Prick the bottom and bake it in a hot oven (approx 200-230ºC) for 12 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, rub the bananas through a sieve and add them to the sugar, salt and unbeaten egg whites.
4. Beat all together until stiff and frothy, then flavour with almond essence and a squeeze of lemon juice.
5. Fill the pastry case with the mixture and bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes.
6. When cool, decorate the top with the whipped cream.

More in this series…