Banana Cake

I know it's a bit odd to be eating a meal from slimmer dinners one night and making a cake the next day, but I can't bear to see bananas go to waste.  This is the ideal cake for using up bananas which are past their best in the fruit bowl. It's a slight variation of Banana Bread in Nigella Lawsons, "How to be a Domestic Goddess". This is one of the cookbooks I would not be without.  I make mine in a food mixer which speeds things up a bit, but it could also be mixed by hand or with an electric whisk. It's a quick cake to make, add nuts if you want or leave out the chocolate. Whatever way you decide, you should smell the house when it's cooking.  A friend of mine never eats puddings or sweet things but he will always have a piece of this cake. I am very flattered by that. I have served this as a dessert before with a sticky toffee sauce and cream, very delicious!

Please feel free to comment on my blog if you have had success or otherwise with any of the recipes.  I would love to know.

Ingredients

100g sultanas
175g plain flour
2 tspn baking powder
half tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
125g butter melted
150g caster sugar
2 large eggs
4 small, very ripe bananas, around 300g in weight, mashed
50g dark chocolate chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (this is an ingredient worthy of paying the extra for)
23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin, buttered and floured or with a paper insert

Method
Preheat the oven to 170C. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt into a large bowl and combine with a spoon. In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar, beat until blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Then with your spoon, stir in the sultanas, chocolate and vanilla extract.  Add the flour folding well into the mixture.  Scrape into the loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for around 1 hour.  When it's cooked and skewer should come out clean.  Leave in the tin to cool.