Blueberry banana cake

Phew, that was close. I have three notebooks on the go at the moment in which I write my 'to do' lists of various things I mustn't forget. I was pretty sure that this recipe must be written down somewhere, and luckily it was in the last notebook I looked in. Sadly the recipe is rather a skeleton, with no cooking time (oops!) but the ingredients are noted, which is obviously the most important thing!

I made this before going on holiday because I had an extremely over-ripe banana in the fruit bowl and a few blueberries in the fridge that I thought I ought to use rather than freezing (theoretically I have lots of freezer capacity, in practice, it's full to bursting and I desperately need to eat up some of the goodies stashed in there). In fact, I enjoyed a piece today from the freezer, thus free-ing up a little more space for the things I'm going to bake today....... sigh! It turned out to be a good decision and the next time I have just such a banana this could well be on the menu again.

Blueberry and banana cake

Ingredients

125g butter

100g caster sugar

150g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder (this is a guess, but I must have put some in the cake and I think it would have been about this much. I found too late that I was out of self raising flour, my preferred flour for baking, so had to use plain and baking powder)

2 large eggs

1 very overripe banana (about 125g, so pretty big)

100g blueberries

For the icing - icing sugar and water!!!

Method

- Preheat the oven to gas 4/180C. Grease and line a small roasting tin (mine measures 9x6.5" or 23x17cm base) with silicon parchment.

- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

- Add the banana and cream again until no lumps of banana remain. I know this is slightly lazy but it saves the washing up created by mashing the banana in a separate bowl. I think it would only work if your banana is seriously overripe, otherwise mash it separately first and then add it to the mixture.

- Add the eggs, flour and baking powder and mix again until well combined.

- Spoon into the tin and sprinkle over the blueberries. You can see this in the picture below.

- Bake for around 30-40 minutes (sorry, forgot to note the time...) until golden brown and a cake tester/wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean.

- Allow to cool on a wire rack.

When cool......for the icing - mix around 100-150g icing sugar with just enough water to make a thick icing. Spoon into a small plastic food bag and snip off the corner before drizzling over the cake.

I really enjoyed this cake. In spite of the banana being so ripe the flavour wasn't overpowering, but added moisture, sweetness and a certain chewiness and denseness (but in the best possible way!) to the cake and a subtle flavour of banana. The blueberries provided a welcome burst of juiciness (although sadly not a great amount of flavour) and the plain icing on the top was just right - a little extra sweetness in some mouthfuls but not all. I wouldn't hesistate to make this again, and it was equally well received at work, with plenty of complimentary remarks!