Bettys York

 If you're not from Yorkshire you've probably never heard of Bettys - unless you've been to York and seen the humongous queue outside this cafe. I say cafe, it's rather a LOT more than just a humble caf! Floor to ceiling curved glass windows, silver tea sets, white china, grand piano and waitors/waitresses immaculately turned out. It's a little piece of luxury even on a rainy day. This is the place I fell in love with tea.

 Bettys was founded by a Swiss gentleman, Frederic Belmont, in 1919. He was a baker and confectioner through his teens in apprenticeships across Europe after losing both of his parents at a young age. He finally made his way to England (huzzah!), and up to Yorkshire after he lost the address he was supposed to go to and all he could remember was that it sounded like 'Bratwurst', he was heading to Bradford. Extraneous details aside he ended up opening a cafe in York, based upon the Queen Mary cruise liner, which was frequented by the Canadian 'Bomber Boys' (RAF) stationed in and around York during the Second World War. There are some brilliant photos downstairs of the Boys in the cafe!

And so to the food. There are distinct Swiss elements to many of the dishes in the menu: Rostis, lots of Gruyere, bacon. Nom. It's all delicious. There are full breakfast, lunch and dinner menus available all day and the place is open 'til 9pm too. Cream teas and no ordinary cake trolley are also available if you're going for a quick 'in and out'.

I went with the full afternoon tea though i've never managed to finish one (small stomach). Sandwiches, scone with jam and clotted cream and a plate of teeny miniature cakes on top. All served with a pot of Bettys house blend tea. There are 4 quarters of sandwiches: smoked salmon, egg and cress, yorkshire ham and roast chicken, though they are very happy to exchange one if you are allergic to egg or fish with another one. No salmon for me, take the extra ham - it's delicious.

In my opinion, these are the best scones around, they aren't too big nor are they too crumbly. Utterly delicious, you just have to figure out whether you're a cream or jam on first kinda guy/gal!

The small cakes on top were a mini lemon drizzle loaf - they must have adorable teeny loaf tins. A fruit tart with a proper creme patisserie and fresh fruit. A chocolate and coffee mini layer cake, which was beautifully constructed, was just one bite too far for me!

My dining guests (Dad and Mr TF) both had prawn and avocado open sandwiches on toasted sourdough and shared a bowl of chips which I can tell were at least twice fried for extra crispiness! Delcious. All of this plus a large mocha and a french press of Java came to £40. We put each of our debit cards into a hat, gave it a shake and asked the waitress to pull out a card to be the dutiful payor of the bill. Dad 'won', thanks for lunch.

The food is always exceptional here, I have never ever had a single complaint for Bettys and leave a happy customer each time. Bettys has a shop adjacent to the cafe where you can take baked treats, chocolate, cookies and cakes home. They do the best pralines outside of Belgium.  They also have the full arsenal of their coffee and teas which they are happy to grind to your need or seal in separate bags for you to keep fresh until opening the next bag.

Their main craft bakery is in Harrogate and you can order cakes or teatime treats online! Recently they have opened a cookery school aswell so you can learn how to make their signature dishes. Go and have a look and fall in love. http://www.bettys.co.uk/

BANANAS!!!

 I went on an Aga cooking course with my momma last year where they made 4 meals (full english, salmon lunch, afternoon tea and roast dinner) in about 2 hours. It was incredible. Anyway I can vaguely remember a basic sponge recipe with banana and coffee. She presented 2 black bananas and a shot of espresso - two of my most hated things - and a handful of walnuts,  wasn't impressed. The cake came out and I tasted it, not to be rude, and it's possibly one of the nicest cakes I've ever eaten. Very moist, not too strong flavours but the melding of everything was soooo good. 

 So I'm one of those really fussy people when it comes to bananas, they have to only just have ripened. I like them to be firm (ooh er, Matron) and with no spots or bruises - if you can't check all the boxes Mr Banana, you need not apply to be eaten. Anybody else hate that heady banana aroma, it's just sickly and grim. Usually Mr ToothFairy will eat them until they're about black but I was bored, felt like baking and had eyed up 2 very speckled bananas by the fruit bowl. It was cake time.

Here's my thrown together recipe of things from the cupboard!

2 old bananas! - the more you add the moister the cake is.

1 egg

1 1/2 cup of plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla essence

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter (melted if you want it easy)

1 shot of espresso OR 2 heaped tsp instant coffee in a little bit of hot water to make a thick pourable liquid - not too syrupy though. 

Preheat the oven to 175C 

Mash the bananas in a large mixing bowl.

Add the butter, this is where melting it comes is handy as it will mix easier, and mix well. 

Chuck in the sugar and vanilla essence and mix again. 

Beat in the egg.

Now for the coffee, be careful at this stage not too pour a hot liquid in all at once as you could scramble the egg - not tasty! Add it 2 or 3 tsp at a time. Mix between additions. 

Add the flour and baking soda and mix well. At this point you could add chopped nuts to the mix for extra deliciousness.

You can pour this into a loaf tin, muffin moulds, cupcake cases or a pyrex dish like I did! 

Bang it into your oven for 25-30mins. It should be lovely and brown and shiny on top. The skewer test is okay on this but since it's a super moist cake you'll get a bit of residue on the skewer/chopstick/knife. 

I cut mine into small squares and got 12 pieces from it. 

You can put icing, glaze or frosting on them - go crazy. A buttercream frosting would work really well. So would a smear of Nutella. They're also great plain and naked with a brew!