Banana Cake

Whilst I was knocking up the previous recipe, I spied a few sad looking bananas in my fruit bowl - way past the point by which I would usually eat them, but perfect for banana cake - the sweeter and mushier, the better. Bananas, oddly (to me anyway), freeze really well - and if you are so inclined, can be peeled, popped onto lollysticks and placed in the freezer for a summery icepop version of one of your five a day.

In the past, this type of loaf cake was eaten sliced and spread with butter, but it certainly doesn't need it. Brown caster sugar, if you have it, works very well - adds a hint of toffee flavour and in fact, if you make extra of the icing for the Sticky toffee pudding cupcakes, that would be excellent smeared over the top of this.

I did throw in the walnuts and cinnamon as it only adds to the flavour - and I did have some buttermilk left over in the fridge, so I used that instead of milk for a creamier taste.

Banana Cake

100g Butter
175g caster sugar
2 eggs (lightly whisked)
2 large or 3 small very ripe bananas, mashed
225g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons milk or buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (optional)
2 big handfuls of walnuts (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 180C

Cream the butter and the sugar together very well using your mixer (can you see a reoccurring theme here? This is the opening line to pretty much ALL my cakes, so you should know the drill by now). Add the eggs slowly, beating all the while. Turn your mixer to low and add the flour,baking powder and cinnamon (mix only briefly) then stir though by hand the mashed banana, walnuts, and milk/buttermilk. Pour into a lined loaf tin (a 2lb size) and bake in the centre of the oven at 180c for about 45 mins to an hour.

You will get a crisp surface to this one and a densish cake - test for doneness by inserting a skewer into the middle of the cake and if it comes out clean, the cake is done. As you can see from the pictures I used two smaller loaf tins - this is because it wasn't until I had started that I realised I couldn't find my loaf tin, but fortunately I had two small cardboard ones from a $10 store that I brought for cuteness value. These don't work brilliantly - cakes tins are metal for a reason (heat conducting properties) which is why I always sneer at those flash gaudy silicon molds everyone bangs on about - no thanks.