Danger! This cake is SERIOUSLY GOOD. I have made so many now and literally finished them before I give away to friends.

How are you all? It’s so hot in London. All my food goes off quickly. I don’t like it. This includes my bananas. I buy new bananas every week but the “fume” of the old ones ripen the new ones so it’s a bad cycle.

So, in the past couple of months I have been researching and improving on my banana cake recipe and I think I got it.

Moist Banana Honey Cake

The memory of banana cake goes back to when I was 13. This was when I first came to the UK and stayed in a boarding school. On of my friend who was a day girl at the time (i.e. she did not board but came to school from home every day) and her grandma baked banana cake for her to take to the class. The cake was so yummy with sweet banana with a tinge of caramel. So yummy that I used to look forward to it all the time. At the same time missed my family not being around.

Now I am a grown-up girl. I can make my own. So here is the recipe. As you have read above, it really is good so I do recommend making it when there are people around so that you don’t finish all of it by yourself.

This one is a pecan nut version. Really nice.

Ingredients:

150g self-raising flour
70g castor sugar (I used 20g light cane and 5g Splenda and it works really well)
2 medium eggs (chilled would be better)
100ml vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon (tsp) bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
50g runny honey (use a good quality one as it makes a huge difference!)
2 ripe banana (approx 240-245g when mushed) mash them and sprinkle 1/2 lemon juice

Optional: 20g nuts blitzed to sprinkle over the cake to decorate (I have used pecan and pistacchio on separate occasions)

Any left over nuts can be used for this cake. Pistacchio add nice colour to the cake.

Preparation:

Preheat the oven (mine is a fan assisted oven) to 160C. Make sure you do this a bit before you start. This is because the cake is so easy to make and you want the oven to be at the right temperature when the batter is ready.
Grease the cake pan (20cm) and line with baking parchment (if it’s non stick, there is no need – I am often too lazy to line the tin..!)

Step 1: Mix flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon and leave it aside (dry ingredients).
Step 2: Put sugar and eggs in a bowl. Use an electric whisk until white and fluffy (about 5-10 min whisk at medium speed).
Step 3: Slowly drizzle the honey followed by vegetable oil while whisking into the batter.
Step 4: Sift the dry ingredients over the batter and mix carefully not to disturb the bubbles in the batter.
Step 5: When the dry ingredient is almost mixed, add the mushed banana. Again, mix carefully.
Step 6: Pour into the cake tin (optional: sprinkle with blitzed nuts) and bake for 35-40min or until the skewer comes out with small crumbs of cake.

I lined the whole pecan nuts to decorate...

Put the cake onto a rack and cool. You can eat it immediately or chill it.

Serving suggestions:
Have it with a good quality vanilla ice cream.

Goes well with a nice cup of coffee (or tea)

Have a nice banana afternoon