Banoffee cake
John Whaite's gives a classic a tasty twist by mixing banoffee pie with cake. It looks so impressive yet is easy to make... perfect with a cuppa!
John also teaches us how to make a piping bag from baking paper.
(Serves 8-10)
Ingredients:
For the cake:
280g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature280g caster sugar280g, about 3 large, very ripe bananas (the blacker the skins, the better)1tsp vanilla extract/bean paste5 large eggs280g self raising flour1tsp salt
For the filling:
350g unsalted butter, at room temperature500g icing sugar½ can caramel2 bananas, sliced into thin disks
Equipment:
3 x 20cm round cake tins, greased and lined with baking paperPiping bags
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan
Whisk the butter and sugar with a food mixer or electric whisk until very pale and light and the sugar is more or less dissolved. you can whisk by hand but it will take longer.
Peel the bananas and add them to the butter mixture and beat until they fall apart, then add the vanilla and eggs and beat until well incorporated. Sift over the flour and salt and fold in until you have a smooth batter.
Divide the batter between the three tins and bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin until completely cold.
For the buttercream filling, whisk the butter until so pale it is almost white - this will take about 5 minutes in an electric whisk. Add the icing sugar and whisk for a further 5 minutes, or until you have a smooth, white icing.
To assemble the cake, take one layer and place onto a cake stand or plate. Put the buttercream into a piping bag, and the caramel into another piping bag, snipping off the ends to make a hole about 1cm in diameter.
Pipe blobs of buttercream in a circle around the edge of the cake, then arrange slices of banana in a smaller circle. Pipe a generous amount of the caramel in a circle inside the banana circle, then finish with a spiral of buttercream so the cake is completely covered. Place the next cooked cake layer on top and repeat the piping pattern on the second cake, then top with the final cake. Finish with some even blobs of buttercream on top.
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