Festive Planning: A Delicious Banoffe Cake.

As you may or may not be aware, this Christmas I have decided to mainly (I use that word loosely- I got excited) to make all of my gifts for friends and family. It isn't just because of our dramatic wedding saving but also it's just nice to get something that someone you care about took the time to make, right?  So I sent around a menu of baking delights to choose from (you can see my options here!) and throughout December (and replacing my Wednesday Words posts for now!) I'll be sharing with you all some of the delicious recipes so we can all have a go!

I'd never made banoffee cake but the trial bake that's shown above was so highly received by my colleagues that I know there's a few that've been waiting a couple of weeks for the recipe. As far as a group of cake eaters go, this lot know their stuff. High praise indeed!

Feeds: 10 (or a couple less if you count sneaky mid afternoon seconds!)

Prep Time: 30 mins total

 Bake Time: 25-30 mins

Ingredients:

175g/6oz self raising flour, 1tsp baking powder, 175g softened butter, 175g golden caster sugar, 3 eggs, 4* medium ripe bananas (the riper the better!) *2 bananas are for the filling, 200ml fresh double cream, 50g icing sugar, 1 jar of Lidl Deluxe range toffee spread (I plan to make my own for Christmas- I'll share that with you at the time!)

1) Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/GM 4 and grease/line two 20cm/8inch sandwich tins.

2) Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and add the softened butter, sugar and eggs, mix together until smooth.

3) Mash two bananas in a bowl using a fork until all large lumps have been mushed. Add this to the mixture and mix together for a further minute. (The mixture will no longer be smooth- this is fine!)

4) Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins and smooth the surfaces.

5) Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 mins until golden brown (it will be slightly darker than usual) and it passes the skewer test. The cakes should feel springy to touch.

6) Leave to cool in the tins for 5 mins and then gently remove. Leave to cool completely before unwrapping from the greaseproof paper.

7) Once cooled, spread a generous layer of the toffee spread onto one of the cakes. Chop the other two bananas and cover the spread. Whilst leaving this to set, add the icing sugar to the double cream and whip on a high speed until thickened. 

8) Spread 1/3 of the cream over the other cake and sandwich together, carefully as the cream vs bananas can be a little slippery.

9) Spread the remainder of the cream over the top of the cake and heat a little of the toffee sauce. Once slightly melted, using your trusty cake skewer, create toffee patterns on top of your cake, adding a lovely finish and extra toffee flavour.

10) Sit down with a nice slice and a cup of tea and watch a festive film.

Love Sophie Xx