Banana and golden syrup cake

  

I had some bananas sitting around in the kitchen feeling generally unloved.  Mr CC won’t touch a banana once it’s past that green, starchy stage that makes your teeth squeak, so they were headed for the compostables bin until I found this recipe.  It’s from the BBC Goodfood site but I’ve made a tweak and substituted golden syrup for the maple syrup listed in the original recipe.  We’ve tried to love maple syrup but just cannot – it’s that background smoky taste that we struggle with; probably because like any good child of the 1970s/80s we were raised on steamed golden syrup sponges and that has fixed our expectation as to what syrup should taste like!

This is an upside down cake and the bananas bake at the bottom of the tin in golden syrup.  When you turn the cake out you add some more syrup and can then either serve it warm with custard for dessert, or as a tea time treat at room temperature.  It definitely has a stronger banana taste when warm, so that’s the way to go if you ‘need’ a good strong hit of banana!

This recipe makes a handsome size cake – perfect when you have many guests to feed.  My one tip with upside cakes is that it’s always best to turn them out the tin when they’re hot/warm – not only because it’s easier to peel the paper off the fruit at the bottom, but also because if your cake has domed while cooking it settles down nicely when still warm to give a stable, flat base.  If you turn it out when cold the shape is fixed and it will look like a spinning top (or a Beyblade, if you can picture one...maybe that’s too obscure a reference!)

The cake keeps fine but just be aware that over time the bananas lose their colour and look a bit grey.  No impact on the taste but not quite so appealing to the eye!

Ingredients

8 tablespoons golden syrup
3 ripe bananas, and 1 very ripe banana
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g light muscovado sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
200g self raising flour
100g ground almonds
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
200g natural/Greek yoghurt

Method

Preheat the oven to 160C/fan oven 140C/325F/gas mark 3.

Line a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper.

Drizzle four tablespoons of golden syrup over the bottom of the tin.

Slice the three ripe bananas (either in rings, or in length) and place evenly in the tin.

Mash the very ripe banana and beat it together with the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until well combined.

Fold in the flour, ground almonds and bicarbonate of soda.

Fold in the yoghurt.

Spoon into the tin – take care not to move the sliced bananas around in the bottom of the tin.

Bake for 45 mins – 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake settle for 10 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack and inverting it (i.e. the bananas are now on the top).

Using a skewer, poke some holes into the cake between the bananas.

Drizzle over the remaining four tablespoons of golden syrup.

Serve either warm for dessert with custard, or on its own at room temperature with a cup of tea.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.