This recipe for Banana Cake with Caramel Icing is a good one to make when you don’t want to make a special trip to the supermarket for any ingredients before you start cooking, as you will probably already have everything in the pantry. I made two loaf cakes, but the recipe would make one big cake too.

You can probably tell by the picture that I didn’t line the tin properly. Instead of cutting the baking paper to suit the bottom of the tin, I pulled off a longer strip of baking paper and poured the batter on top, which meant the baked cake has a ruffly curtain sort of look. Not the effect I was going for, so from now on I’ll make the effort to line the base of the cake tin only and grease the sides with butter.

Banana Cake with Caramel Icing

60 m butter

1 C caster sugar (you could use white sugar)

1 tspn vanilla extract

1/4 C warm milk

1 egg

3 bananas, mashed

1 and a half Cups plain flour

1 tspn baking powder

1 tspn bicarb soda

Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and 2 tablespoons of the milk together until light and fluffy, then beat in the egg and banana.

Using a metal spoon stir in the flour, baking powder and bicarb soda, then the rest of the milk.

Pour the batter into the lined cake tins and bake at 170 degrees Celsius for around 45 minutes. Leave the cakes in the tins for five minutes before turning them on to a wire rack. Ice the cakes with Caramel Icing when cool.

Caramel Icing

1 C brown sugar

2 tblspns milk

1 tblspn butter

1 tspn vanilla extract

Place the sugar, milk and butter in a saucepan and cook over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved (stirring constantly). Bring the mixture to the boil, then simmer very gently for about five minutes. Keep a close eye on the mixture as it can burn quickly if it is too hot. Remove from the heat and mix in the vanilla extract.