BANANAS!!!

 I went on an Aga cooking course with my momma last year where they made 4 meals (full english, salmon lunch, afternoon tea and roast dinner) in about 2 hours. It was incredible. Anyway I can vaguely remember a basic sponge recipe with banana and coffee. She presented 2 black bananas and a shot of espresso - two of my most hated things - and a handful of walnuts,  wasn't impressed. The cake came out and I tasted it, not to be rude, and it's possibly one of the nicest cakes I've ever eaten. Very moist, not too strong flavours but the melding of everything was soooo good. 

 So I'm one of those really fussy people when it comes to bananas, they have to only just have ripened. I like them to be firm (ooh er, Matron) and with no spots or bruises - if you can't check all the boxes Mr Banana, you need not apply to be eaten. Anybody else hate that heady banana aroma, it's just sickly and grim. Usually Mr ToothFairy will eat them until they're about black but I was bored, felt like baking and had eyed up 2 very speckled bananas by the fruit bowl. It was cake time.

Here's my thrown together recipe of things from the cupboard!

2 old bananas! - the more you add the moister the cake is.

1 egg

1 1/2 cup of plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla essence

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter (melted if you want it easy)

1 shot of espresso OR 2 heaped tsp instant coffee in a little bit of hot water to make a thick pourable liquid - not too syrupy though. 

Preheat the oven to 175C 

Mash the bananas in a large mixing bowl.

Add the butter, this is where melting it comes is handy as it will mix easier, and mix well. 

Chuck in the sugar and vanilla essence and mix again. 

Beat in the egg.

Now for the coffee, be careful at this stage not too pour a hot liquid in all at once as you could scramble the egg - not tasty! Add it 2 or 3 tsp at a time. Mix between additions. 

Add the flour and baking soda and mix well. At this point you could add chopped nuts to the mix for extra deliciousness.

You can pour this into a loaf tin, muffin moulds, cupcake cases or a pyrex dish like I did! 

Bang it into your oven for 25-30mins. It should be lovely and brown and shiny on top. The skewer test is okay on this but since it's a super moist cake you'll get a bit of residue on the skewer/chopstick/knife. 

I cut mine into small squares and got 12 pieces from it. 

You can put icing, glaze or frosting on them - go crazy. A buttercream frosting would work really well. So would a smear of Nutella. They're also great plain and naked with a brew!