Two of life’s finest flavours – discovers sticky banoffee cake with drool-worthy salted caramel sauce
Ingredients
• 150g pitted dates, chopped
• 80ml vegetable oil
• 150g light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons yoghurt
• 2 overripe bananas, peeled
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 260g wholemeal flour
The salted caramel:
• 3 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon salted butter
• 4 tablespoons whipping cream
• flaky salt, for sprinkling or fleur de sel, for sprinkling
Method
1 Soak the dates in 125 ml boiling water for 10 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C and liberally grease a deep 20 cm cake tin with butter or sunflower oil.
2 Place the dates and their soaking water in a food processor and blitz until as smooth as possible. Add the oil, sugar, eggs, yoghurt and bananas, blending until well combined.
3 Blend in the bicarbonate of soda, salt and flour until just mixed together. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40–50 minutes until well risen and a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
4 Leave to cool for 10 minutes before turning the cake onto a wire rack, with a piece of baking parchment underneath the rack.
5 To make the caramel, heat the sugar with 4 tablespoons of water in a deep saucepan, stirring until the sugar just dissolves.
6 Continue to heat the mixture, swirling the pan often, but not stirring. Let it caramelise so that the mixture is mostly golden with a few darker areas around the edges of the pan. 7 Add the butter and cream (be careful as it may spit and bubble up), turn down the heat to low and stir until a smooth consistency is achieved.
8 Cook the caramel for a further 5 minutes to help it thicken, then immediately pour it all over the cake. Sprinkle with the salt and leave to cool and set.
Recipe courtesy of Izy Hossack, extracted from Top With Cinnamon.
