I make a lot of cakes but these by Rozi at work are lovely and inventive and completely adorable. The cooing is deafening, I must stop.

This recipe had even people who do not like bananas eating it.

Each stage is neatly illustrated by an unrelated Robot. This is because Mike gave him to me and I spent an evening pretending he was a cooking assistant. This is, apparently, what four weeks in a new house without the Internet will do to a person (namely, me). Recipe’s from the good folks at Domestic Sluttery. For both Robots and people to eat.

Ingredients:
* 115g butter
* 170g caster sugar
* 225g Self Raising Flour
* 2 eggs
* 2 large/3 medium bananas

Instructions:
1. Heat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin. You can get some fancy pant loaf tin liners here if you want to look super professional!

2. Mash the bananas in a bowl. Set aside.

3. In a separate bowl cream your butter and sugar. Once it is nice and fluffy beat in eggs.

4. Mix in the bananas, and the walnuts if you are using them and then stir in the flour.

5. Pour your mixture into the loaf tin and whack it in the oven. Bake for 40 minutes and then lower the oven temperature to 150C/300F/Gas 2 and bake for a further 30 minutes.

My friend Yvonne went to Spain and came back raving about Limoncello. It is likely to she is just a particularly vocal alcoholic, but in the name of cultured booze, some brief mention of being unable to find Limoncello in the UK, and this very well-timed tutorial from Domestic Sluttery, I decided to make some.

It uses lemons, vodka and sugar, and some hefty Kilner Jars. For anyone that doesn’t know me, these are big glass preserve jars with orange rubber rings and for unknown reasons I think they’re one of the best things ever. Obviously they’re just glass jars, but everyone’s got their foibles.

This is the first time I’ve had limoncello so I’m a terrible judge without a benchmark. It’s strange stuff – very strong, with a tasty lemon syrup to take the ‘christ this is strong’ shock away just at the right time. Here’s the recipe, with important notes from me.

LIMONCELLO (Makes around 2 litres)

You will need:
• 1 litre of basic vodka
• 5 unwaxed lemons
• 500g caster sugar
• 500ml boiling water

Make It!
1. Peel the lemons using a swivel-style peeler. Scrape off any white pith, turn the radio on and sit comfortably as this bit does take ages. However, it’s really important as any leftover will make the limoncello taste bitter. This works best to invite a good friend round under the guise of cooking them dinner. Cook dinner and point them at this mundane task whilst plying them with alcohol.

2. Place the peel in a 2 litre kilner jar and pour in the vodka. Leave in a cupboard for a week, shaking the jar every day. After seven days, put the sugar in a heatproof bowl and pour over the boiling water. Stir the whole lot until the sugar dissolves then leave the syrup until it’s completely cool. Misread/forget the recommended time and leave for three weeks, shaking every day. Panic, and add another week onto alcohol’s ETA.

3. Stir the syrup into the vodka, seal the lid and leave for at least another two weeks, again shaking every day or two. Taste the limoncello at this stage and sweeten with more syrup or top up more vodka as suits your taste, then strain into some fancy bottles. Tie a nice bow around them, and voila! There you have it – tasty, lemon-y, Christmas-y booze! Declare self too lazy to suit to taste. Hurl into bottles. Add bow. Tell recipient if they like it they’re welcome to a jamjar more of it.

Good stuff.

I’m doing pretty well for cake this week. The Hummingbird bakery held a re-opening of their re-furbished Kensington store. “Do you want to eat cake, drink champagne and take photos?” they said. “Yes” we said, and so we went to eat cake, drink champagne and take photos. Everyone was very polite whilst we commandeered the cake table and proceeded to be undignified.

The bakery is nice, small and cute. There are three of them in London, and it is genuinely one of those rare places where the cake looks very cute and also tastes nice (more technically described as ‘Light and moist’) which is good because there are a lot of places that sell cute cake that tastes terrible. If I was going to buy cake, which I rarely do (n.b. they do a recipe book), I would buy it from here. The red velvet is a stand-out.

I loved the steamy window with the lights diffused from outside. It made standing inside feel warm (which it was, and so we threw off multiple layers) and cosy, like a secret little party.

So, here are some photos of cake. Bear with it.

Look, here I am holding two cakes at once. “But I want to eat it” I said, as Nicola took the third attempt at a photo. “It is dribbling all over my hand. Here, let me eat it and grab another. That would be most practical.” And so the night continued.

Oh look, it’s me adeptly multitasking holding a cake, two champagne glasses and a pair of glasses that spend their time trying to fall down my face. You can see the re-done kitsch tiling in the background. It is pretty nice as far as tiling goes. I am apparently unable to see a bird these days without going “oh look, the twitter bird, on a wall!” Not cool.

And a goodybox, which had a big cake in it. Om nom nom.
A lovely place, go.

For Christmas I was given a calendar which, despite the fact that it is made of paper and requires the use of a pen instead of a computer device, I like very much. This is principally because it has a big cupcake for every month. “I will make my own version every month” and I did, for this month at least. The plan is to keep it up. And it is cake, so I see no reason not to.

So, above is the ideal, the holy grail of polar bear cake. Below are our efforts, which I’m sure you will agree are at least ten times as good. See: a little guide to how to to make them to make your own. Show me your efforts please.

I love this one.  He looks like he is french and enjoys reading.