Wednesday 13 February 2013

Black banana and chocolate cake







































Perennial problems with bananas - too green when you buy them and want to eat them, then forgotten and over ripe with a high infused banana flavour. The addition of chocolate and almonds mellows the banana and creates a dense slightly puddingy cake best eaten in small quantities! Nigel Slater is the origin of this recipe but with a few minor adjustments.

175g softened butter
150g caster sugar/muscovado sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
75g ground almonds
175g self raising flour
100g dark chocolate cut into slithers
2 large over ripe bananas cut into cubes

Heat oven to 170 centigrade
Grease and fully line a loaf tin
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Gradually beat in the eggs and vanilla
Fold in flour and almonds
Gently fold in chocolate and bananas
Pour into loaf tin - cook for 40 minutes then cover top with foil to prevent over browning and then cook for a further 40 minutes or until top is no longer soggy and skewer is clean (except for the melted chocolate!)