Banana Cake

I had a couple of over-ripe bananas hanging round in the kitchen so I decided to have a go at a banana bread/cake today. After a quick search on the internet, I found a couple of recommendations for this recipe. It looked nice and easy and I had all the necessary ingredients so I decided to give it a go. Mid-way through the bake, I realised that my loaf tin was too small, so I decided to just bung it in a round cake tin and hope for the best! It turned out just fine – cooking in about the same time as suggested for the loaf tin.

The original recipe does not include the fudge chunks – I had these in the cupboard and decided to throw them in rather than the walnuts – I figured it would give quite a nice banoffee flavour. The golden syrup also isn’t in the original recipe but was suggested in one of the comments below, and so I decided to give that a go too.

When the cake came out of the oven, it looked quite domed in the middle, but it settled down to a nice flat top. Some of the banana did sink a little to the bottom – I think I should have mashed it a little smaller - but overall, the flavour of this cake was fantastic and it was a nice moist cake.

Ingredients

1. 115g butter
2. 170g caster sugar
3. 225g self-raising flour
4. 2 eggs
5. 2 tblsp golden syrup
6. 115g chopped walnuts (optional)
7. 85g mini fudge chunks (optional)
8. 2 large/3 medium bananas

Method

1. Heat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin / 20cm deep round cake tin.
2. Mash the bananas in a bowl and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
5. Mix in the bananas and the walnuts/fudge chunks if using.
6. Stir in the sifted flour.
7. Stir in the golden syrup.
8. Pour your mixture into the tin and pop it in the oven.
9. Bake the loaf for 40 minutes and then lower the oven temperature to 150C/300F/Gas 2 and bake for a further 30 minutes.
10. When cooked, the cake should spring back when touched lightly.
11. Once cooked, remove from oven and place the tin on a wire rack.
12. Leave to cool for 15 minutes and then remove from tin and place on wire rack to cool completely.