Sunday 5 October 2008

Caramel Banana Cake

Clearly, I am insane. After complaining about the heat on Friday (it got to 32C in the house before I cranked up the air con), I turned on the oven, and the girls and I did some baking. Yes, insane - but I had a few bananas that were really going to be beyond useable if I left them any longer, so banana cake just had to be the order of the day.

This recipe's from a 1987 "Cakes and Slices Cookbook".... which I just realised is also an Australian Women's Weekly one - what would my kitchen be without the Australian Women's Weekly?

Here's the recipe - I used yoghurt because I didn't have any sour cream, and it turned out a successful, moist cake, but the cream would make it much better I think.

Caramel Banana Cake
125g butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs
1 cup mashed banana (about 3 bananas)
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp bi-carb soda
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tbs milk

Grease a loaf pan. Heat oven to 180C.
Cream butter and sugar in small bowl, then beat in eggs one at a time.
Transfer to large bowl. Stir in banana. Stir in sifted dry ingredients with half the combined cream and milk, then stir in remaining halves. Stir until smooth.
Pour into prepared pan. Bake for about 1 hour, stand 5 minutes, then turn onto wire rack.

Caramel Icing
60g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbs sour cream
1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Melt butter and sugar in saucepan. Stir constantly over heat without boiling for 2 minutes. Add sour cream, bring to the boil. Remove from heat and stir in icing sugar.

NB: You need to work quickly with the icing and get the cake covered before it cools too much because it goes sticky and clumpy when it cools. Also, it is disgustingly sweet, and even I, with my very sweet tooth and ability to guzzle sugary treats with joyous abandon, can't eat as much of this icing as I normally would.

(Sorry about this crappy photo. The light in my kitchen is dodgy and my dining table was covered in piles of laundry. Talitha (5) took the first two photos; evidently she's the photographer today!)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks good! I had to throw out some bananas just yesterday, as they were as black as black can be, and I knew I wasn't going to get a change to bake something with them this weekend. (Also, those little fruit flies were making their home in my kitchen, I think they were attracted to the almost-off bananas). I will have to put down this recipe on my "to make" list!

I wonder if you could tweak the caramel icing to make it not so sickly sweet??

PS. Talitha's photography skills are coming along nicely! Also, I have that problem of crappy kitchen lighting too. There is almost always no natural light left in my house by the time I'm ready to photograph the delicious-ness.

Sumara said...

That often happens to bananas around here - so frustrating!

It just occurred to me that I have made caramel frosting before for a caramel mudacke and I'm sure it wasn't as sweet as this one... I'll find the recipe and see what the difference might be.

Mr B said...

Oh wow sumara, that cake looks delicious. Really not good for me to look at it on my diet.....

Alicia Foodycat said...

That is such a good cake - an old favourite. I usually do a cream cheese icing with it though, because the caramel is just too sweet.

Anonymous said...

Hiya- many thanks for this recipe- a friend makes this cake and I LOVE it :)


Quick tip- bananas can be frozen- so when they go icky pop them in the freezer, skin and all and then use them when you need them- tis sometimes hard to get the peel off, but they taste very yummy. I have a kenwood chef so tis no problem to mix them into mixes when frozen :) I don't know that I would defrost them to eat, but I use them in smoothies for the kids and now that I have a recipe - banana cakes!

Sumara said...

Hi Foodycat - cream cheese icing is a great idea, thanks!

Hi Lisa. :-) I've tried freezing bananas before but they went so yucky-looking when defrosted, I wasn't sure about it. I should try it again. Thanks!