Banana toffee pudding

When I found myself with three over-ripe bananas last weekend, I wanted to do something a bit different to the usual banana breads or cakes; so I decided to attempt a banana version of sticky toffee pudding.

There was quite a lot of guesswork in making up the recipe, but I essentially swapped the dates in a sticky toffee pudding recipe given to me ages ago by a colleague with caramelised bananas – and it turned out great!

The cake itself would actually work really well as a plain banana cake as it had a nice amount of sweetness and quite a light texture, so I may well follow the same recipe next time I want to make a banana loaf.

The addition of the toffee sauce is what really makes this pudding an indulgence though – although be warned it is extremely rich, and I actually couldn’t finish a whole piece in one go.

Next time you find yourself with bananas to spare on a rainy weekend, I would definitely recommend trying this!

One more close up of the delicious sticky toffee sauce…

Banana toffee pudding

Makes 9 large portions

• 3 over-ripe bananas, sliced
• 85g butter
• 170g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 170g self raising flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2tbsp natural yoghurt
• 60g light brown sugar
• 60g dark brown sugar
• 115g butter
• 140ml double cream

To caramelise the bananas, heat 10g of the caster sugar with 1tbsp water in a large frying pan. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil without stirring and simmer until it turns golden. Quickly stir in 5g of the butter, then add the bananas. Cook until the bananas start to break down into a puree then remove from the heat.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the remaining 80g butter and 160g caster sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the vanilla and eggs, one at a time. Add the bananas and yoghurt and mix well. Finally, sift in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and fold in to the mixture. Pour into an 8×8″ square pan, greased and lined, then bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

To make the sauce, put both brown sugars, the 115g butter and the cream into a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has all dissolved. Simmer for about 5 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened a little, then remove from the heat. Serve the cake warm with hot sauce poured on top, with extra cream, ice cream or custard. Delicious!

Banoffee muffins

After seeing these delicious looking sticky toffee banoffee muffins on Tinned Tomatoes, it was really only a matter of time before I had a go at making them myself.

That time came around quickly, as I needed something I could bake that would survive an hour’s drive to a meeting and feed an office full of hungry people, and muffins seemed like the ideal solution.

I had a bit of a baking dilemma as the recipe doesn’t use any sugar, just a tin of caramel – I wasn’t sure if this was right and couldn’t decide whether to guess and add sugar or not – in the end I cautiously added 20g dark brown sugar just to ease my mind, although it really wasn’t necessary.

I think I mixed the caramel in a bit too well, as I didn’t really get melty pools of caramel as I was hoping, but I did get moist, sweet banana muffins that smelt AMAZING every time I opened the tin!

These muffins have also taught me the difference between muffins and cupcakes – the cases I used were most definitely cupcake cases, as I discovered when the recipe which was supposed to make 12 made 16 with quite a bit of overflowing batter, which led the friendly pony to call some of the less fortunate looking cakes “elephant man cupcakes”…

Thanks to Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes for posting the recipe – apart from the sugar  I followed it exactly so you can see the original here.

Homemade Twix bars

When I saw these homemade Twix bars on Pinterest, they jumped straight to the top of my to-bake list.

They aren’t really that different to the millionaire’s shortbread I’ve made in the past, but being called a Twix was enough to sell it to me, as I love recreating shop bought treats at home.

I was a bit dubious about the base as it was a very liquid mixture, and it seemed spongy when it came out of the oven, but once cooled it did turn biscuity. The only problem was that as a result of it being so liquid to start with, all the butterscotch chips sank to the bottom, and a lot go stuck on the foil, making the bars not quite as perfect looking as I would have liked, but still tasty.

If I were to make them again, I think I would just cream the butter and sugar without melting the butter first and see if that makes a difference. On the plus side though, I think this was the best caramel I’ve made so far!

Homemade Twix bars (adapted from Bakers Royale):

(Makes 24 finger-sized bars)

For the base:

• 115g butter, melted
• 110g brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 110g plain flour
• 75g butterscotch chips

Mix together the melted butter and sugar, then beat in the egg and vanilla before folding in the flour and butterscotch chips. Pour into an 8×8″ square tin, lines with foil or baking paper, then bake at 175 degrees for 15 minutes, or until firm. Leave to cool completely while you make the caramel.

For the caramel:

• 200g caster sugar
• 90ml water
• 60g butter
• 60ml double cream

Heat the sugar and water in a saucepan over a low heat until the sugar has completely dissolved. Bring to the boil, then continue to boil without stirring until it turns a golden amber colour. Remove from the heat, tip in the butter and cream, and whisk vigorously until combined and the mixture stops bubbling. Pour into a bowl or jug and leave to cool before pouring on top of the base.

For the chocolate layer:

• 170g dark chocolate
• 1tsp golden syrup
• 75g butter

Melt all the ingredients together in a bowl over simmering water. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little, before spreading on top of the set caramel. Leave the tin in the fridge for an hour or so to allow everything to set, before cutting into finger-sized bars and serving.

Caramel apple cheesecake

Cheesecake is basically my favourite dessert, and also one of my favourite things to bake.

Over the years I’ve been making this recipe, I’ve adapted and tweaked it to what I think is cheesecake perfection – although of course that depends on your personal cheesecake preference!

I know most people prefer a biscuit base, but I like a sponge base and that’s what I’ve used here. It’s an easy recipe, but quite time consuming – it’s best done over 2 days if you have the time.

The basic cheesecake will suit any number of toppings, and is equally delicious plain, but as I had a large bag of apples waiting to be used, I went for caramel apple.

It’s insanely calorific, and a bit pricey to make, but well worth it for a special occasion, or just if you need some indulgence!

Caramel Apple Cheesecake:

For the sponge base:

• 65g butter
• 65g caster sugar
• 4tbsp cornflour
• 1 egg
• 65g self raising flour
• 1tsp baking powder

Line a 9″ springform tin with baking paper, and grease the paper and sides of the tin. Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy, then beat in the egg and fold in the flour and baking powder until combined. Spread into the tin and bake at 180 for about 20 minutes, until golden and springy.

For the cheesecake:

• 900g full-fat cream cheese
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• zest and juice of a lemon
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 375ml double cream

Beat the cream cheese to soften, then add in the sugar and cornflour and beat until well combined. Add in the eggs one at a time, then add the lemon zest, juice and vanilla extract. Finally, fold in the cream, until it’s mixed in well. It should be a fairly liquid consistency.

Remove the sponge from the tin when cooled, grease the sides of the tin and put the sponge back (with the paper still on the bottom). Pour the cheesecake mixture on top, and bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes. When you are pre-heating the oven, leave a baking tray at the bottom to heat up, then when you put the cheesecake in pour a couple of centimetres of hot water into the tray, to make the oven nice and steamy.

After the first 15 minutes of baking, turn the heat down to 110 degrees, and bake for a further hour and a half. When the time is up, the cheesecake should be set but still have a bit of a wobble in the centre. Turn the heat off, but leave the cheesecake in the oven to cool for at least 3 hours, when it can be transferred to the fridge to chill overnight.

For the caramel apples:

• 3-4 apples, peeled, cored and chopped into wedges
• 1tbsp butter
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/3 cup brown or muscovado sugar

Heat the butter in a saucepan until melted, then add in the sugars. Stir until dissolved and bubbling, then add in the apples. When the apples are starting to soften, remove from the saucepan and set aside. Keep cooking the sugar and butter mix until it becomes a thick syrup, then stir into the apples.

To assemble the cheesecake, run a knife around the edge of the cheesecake and remove the side of the tin. Cover a plate with clingfilm, then turn the cheesecake upside down on to it. Take the paper of the bottom of the sponge, then flip back onto a cake board or whatever you want to serve it on. When the apples are cooled, spoon on top of the cheesecake and serve!

Caramel crumble bars

Continuing with the recent crumb/crumble theme, I introduce these caramel crumble bars. Essentially millionaires shortbread, but with a crumble topping rather than chocolate.

I found the recipe on Baked Perfection, and pretty much kept it the same apart from adding a drizzle of dark chocolate on top. I should have just stuck with the original, as the chocolate didn’t really stick to the crumb topping and fell off quite easily…

I won’t bother re-typing the original as it’s perfectly well explained here, but I would definitely recommend trying it as they were pretty tasty!

Banoffee pie tarts

These banoffee pie tarts were a last minute addition to my barbecue cake line up, when I realised I would have double the amount of pastry I needed for the mini white chocolate and strawberry tarts.

I thought about what would go well with the pecans in the pastry, and although I’ve never tried it before decided that pecan, banana and caramel was bound to be a winner.

I totally made this the cheat way with a tin of caramel, but when you’ve got 5 sets of cakes to make in a day speed is important!

If these were any bigger I think they’d be a bit too sweet for my tastes, but in such little bite size portions they were just right!

Banoffee pie tarts (makes about 15):

• 1/2 quantity of pecan shortcrust pastry, recipe here
• 2 bananas
• 1 400g tin caramel (or dulce de leche if you want better quality!)
• 300ml double cream

Once the pastry is baked and cooled, add a heaped teaspoon of caramel into each case. Chop one of the bananas and place the pieces on top of the caramel. Lightly whip the cream then spoon a dollop onto the top of each tart, then top with another slice of banana. Ridiculously easy!

Chocolate caramel shortbread

This week the friendly pony decided to take a break from dinosaur flapjacks (usually at least one is consumed per day) and tasked me to make something else.

I decided to make something I don’t particularly like, so I wouldn’t be so tempted to steal some for myself. As much as I would love to be able to eat baked goods all the time, it really wouldn’t be good for my waistline!

I decided on chocolate caramel shortbread, because caramel is a bit too sickly for me, but perfect for the pony’s sweet tooth.

I had a few problems making this, firstly that it called for a 9×9″ tray, which I don’t have. I improvised by creating a foil barrier in a rectangle tray, which actually surprised me and worked!

The shortbread itself is absolute simplicity to make so no problems there, but when it came to the caramel I came a bit unstuck.

I very gently heated all the ingredients with no problem, but the recipe then said to bring it to the boil, which immediately caused it to burn on the bottom of the saucepan, no matter how furiously I stirred. I took it off the heat, passed it through a sieve to get rid of the brown bits, then started again in a different saucepan on a lower heat. Frustratingly the same thing happened again and I have absolutely no idea why, so i repeated the sieve procedure, then heated for a THIRD time until it was finally thick enough.

It didn’t quite reach the golden brown colour I was hoping for, and did have a few brown specks in if you look closely, but it was good enough.

Patience is definitely not one of my virtues, so I put the tray in the freezer to firm up so I could get the chocolate on as quickly as possible. Unfortunately this meant that the chocolate set super quick so I couldn’t spread it as neatly as I would of liked, and it had a slightly matt finish instead of being glossy.

Nonetheless, I think these bars turned out ok – the pony declared them ‘NICE!’ and certainly hasn’t had a problem getting through them…

Chocolate caramel shortbread (from 1001 cupcakes, cookies and other tempting treats):

• 115g butter
• 115g plain flour
• 55g caster sugar

Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until it goes past the breadcrumbs stage and starts to come together. Flatten down into a greased and lined 9×9″ tin and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, until just golden.

• 175g butter
• 115g caster sugar
• 3tbsp golden syrup
• 400ml tin condensed milk
• 200g dark chocolate

Place all the ingredients apart from the chocolate in a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, then simmer until thick and golden (in an ideal world!) stiring constantly. Pour on top of the shortbread base, and leave in the fridge to set.

Melt the chocolate over simmering water then spread over the caramel. Cut into squares before putting back in the fridge, as the chocolate will be easier to cut and won’t crack.

1,000 calorie chocolate caramel lion birthday cake

This week was a special week.

It was the friendly pony’s birthday, and such a special day deserves a special cake.

Quite a while ago we saw a recipe on the BBC good food website for a chocolate caramel layer cake that had an obscene 1,000 calories per slice.

There’s almost nothing the pony likes more than big calories, but I insisted that I would only make such a big calorie cake for a special occasion…

The cake itself was actually quite easy to make and wouldn’t have taken too long – had I not decided that what would make it complete was a marzipan lion.

Having never made marzipan animals before I didn’t really know what to expect, but colouring it and moulding it was easy enough. The part that took me a good hour or more was making his mane, from individual thinly rolled pieces of marzipan…

I was happy with the finished lion though, even if he was a little on the chubby side.

I proudly placed him on top of 4 layers of vanilla, caramel, caramel-chocolate and chocolate sponge, sandwiched with caramel and coated in thick chocolate ganache (you can actually hear the calories if you read that sentence out loud).

The towering cake somehow managed to make a 25 minute car journey to the pony’s work, where everyone had a slice and seemed to enjoy it. One person actually asked if making cakes was my job, amazing!

The recipe I followed is here, and the only change I made was adding a little extra yoghurt to the chocolate layer as the mixture was a bit too thick after adding all the cocoa powder.

It really was an awesome cake, but unless you’re one of those hateful people who can eat and eat and never put on weight, I would definitely save it for a special occasion and only have a very small slice!