Banana and salted caramel cake

Yes banana is healthy, but when combined with copious amounts of butter, sugar and cream, the benefits are most probably cancelled out...

100g soft brown sugar
50g soft brown sugar
150g unsalted butter
250g plain flour
one teaspoon of cinnamon
half a teaspoon of ground ginger (optional)
half a teaspoon of nutmeg (optional)
one and a half teaspoons of baking powder
two eggs, beaten
one vanilla pod
three bananas, mashed
50 ml milk
a dash of orange juice

equal weights of butter and soft brown sugar (I used 100g of each and still had enough to fill a jar size 190g)
coarse sea salt - to taste
double cream

Preheat the oven to 200C and line two 18-20cm cake tins.

Lined tins.

Cream together the butter and sugar.
Deseed the vanilla pod, and add to the butter and sugar.
Gradually beat in the eggs to the butter and sugar - if you do it too quickly, the mixture will curdle and separate.
Add half of the dry ingredients to the mixture and whisk.
Then add all of the milk and orange juice, and whisk.
Once thoroughly combined, add the rest of the dry ingredients.
Add the mashed bananas to the mix and stir together.
Pour into the tins and cook for 30 - 40 minutes.

Cake.



 

Salted caramel sauce.
 



Melt the sugar and butter in a sauce pan over a medium heat.
As soon as they have both fully melted, take off the heat.
Then add the salt and cream, and stir.
Leave aside to cool and thicken.
When lukewarm, drizzle onto the cake.

I topped the cake with extra pieces of cake.

For texture, you could add toasted walnuts to the mixture.

 

Blueberry Tart

Ingredients:
225g plain flour
110g soft brown sugar
110g cold unsalted butter
4 egg yolks

1 big tub of blueberries (I didn't have enough so I used some cherries too)
ricotta

Recipe:
In a mixer, put in the butter, flour, sugar, yolks and mix until you have a dough.
Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill it for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a tart case.
In a saucepan, tip in the blueberries on medium heat. If they start to stick to the pan or dry, add a dash of water. Stir occassionaly.
When the blueberries have softened but are still whole, drain of water and take off the heat.
Roll out the pastry and line the tart case.
Spread ricotta over the base and tip the blueberries on to the ricotta-lined pastry evenly.
Cook for 40 minutes or until the pastry is completely cooked.
Serve warm with vanilla ice-cream.