Banana cake

The favourite cake in our house is hands-down the banana cake. A lunchbox favourite, it never fails to impress even children who don’t like eating bananas. The recipe is an oldie: you can tell as it has very few ingredients and is made using only one bowl.

Its origins are unknown, however, I suspect it came from an old cookbook because there is nothing fancy about it. A few pantry staples, an egg, some butter and ageing bananas are all you need.

I like to freeze it in slices and add to the kids’ lunchboxes once or twice a week. I always double the recipe as the moment they smell it cooking it is hard not to use up one as a snack and then ‘bank’ the other one in the freezer for lunches. I also like to freeze any over-ripe bananas for baking later on rather than put them in the compost.

EASY BANANA CAKE

INGREDIENTS

• 1¾ cups of self raising flour
• ½ cup of castor sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp of butter (I use unsalted), softened
• 2 tbsp of water
• 2 over-ripe bananas, peeled
• a pinch of salt
• ½ tsp of bicarbonate of soda
• Optional: some chocolate broken up into large pieces

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 160ºC fan forced (180ºC conventional).
2. Line a loaf tin with baking paper.
3. Combine all ingredients (except chocolate) either in a bowl or using a mixer.
4. Place in loaf tin, even out the top using a spatula.
5. If adding chocolate, poke pieces into the mixture before baking.
6. Bake for 40 minutes or until cooked through.
7. Cool for 10 minutes on wire rack.
8. Slice and serve, or slice and freeze for lunch boxes. Cut up the baking paper from cooking the cake to separate the pieces when freezing.