Cooking the Books

A friend has been staying with me and together we have tidied my shelves, working our way through hundreds of old cookbooks not to mention the gifts of many handwritten recipe books passed on to me by grown-up grandchildren We even found an old Be-Ro cookbook so beloved by our own parents, I remember it being the one my mother used to teach me how to make scones when I was about five. Without fail, all these old books and recipes still show how inexpensive cooking can be, but will today's youngsters ever discover this when none of these give metric weights? Time to write up old economical and easy family recipes in a form that today's grandchildren can understand.
Here is my son's favourite recipe, much loved by all the family and a great way to use up ripe bananas.
Banana Bread
8 oz (225g) S.R..flour, sifted with 1 level tsp. baking powder,
1 egg
3 oz (75g) each butter (or marg) and granulated sugar
1 heaped dessp. apricot jam,
2 or 3 ripe bananas, mashed.
few chopped nuts, optional
Cream the fat and sugar until light and fluffy, add a tsp. of the flour and beat in the egg.
Fold in the rest of the flour and remaining ingredients.
Pour into a greased and lined 1lb loaf tin and bake at 180C, 350F, Gas 4 for about 45 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch. After 30 mins. if browning too early, tent with foil. When cooked, turn out and cool on a wire rack.
Tip: To prevent browning put foil shiny side up. To aid browning put foil shiny side down.