Banana, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Loaf Cake

In every family there’s always a scale of culinary abilities. There’s the Delia Smith – the one who does the majority of the cooking, the ‘I cook to survive’ one who could make pasta and boil an egg if needed, and the one who could burn water and would die trying to find their way to the kitchen. Whilst in my family we have a kinda scale like this, everyone of us has, admittedly, a pretty good knack in the kitchen, and we all have our signature dishes. For me it’s my chocolate fondants, for my Mum it’s her chicken and leek pie, my Dad’s is his ultimate apricot tiffin, and my sister makes a mean chocolate banana cake.

However, since my sister left home we haven’t had many of her incredible banana cakes around, so I thought I’d make one of my own. This one’s just like hers – packed with banana and chocolate chips which melt into delicious puddles when served warm! I’ve also added some peanut butter though as I love a good PB and chocolate combo. This one is also really easy and fun to make, but when served fresh from the oven it’s everything you could want from a cake.

Recipe

Makes 1 loaf

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 50g Unsalted butter
• 75g Peanut butter
• 250g Caster sugar
• 2 Medium eggs
• 250g Plain flour
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 2 Ripe bananas
• 200g Dark chocolate

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C.
2. Put the butter, peanut butter and sugar into a bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.
3. Add the eggs and then whisk until combined. Then sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and fold in to make a smooth batter.
4. Mash the bananas in another bowl with a fork until they’re a pulp. Then roughly chop the chocolate. Add the bananas and 150g of the chocolate to the batter and stir until fully combined.
5. Line a 1L loaf tin with butter and baking paper. Pour in the mixture and then bake in the oven for about 1 hour until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle. If the top starts to brown too much cover it loosely with kitchen foil to protect it.
6. When ready take the cake out of the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes before turning it out of the tin. Leave to cool on a wire wrack.
7. Meanwhile put the rest of the chopped chocolate into a heatproof bowl and melt over a pan of gently simmering water. Pour this chocolate into a pipping bag with a small round nozzle and drizzle over the cake. Then serve!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x