Is a banana cake worthy of a blog post? After all, it is common, everyday fare and cyberspace is home to hundreds of recipes already. And, in Australia at least, commercial versions are widely available, in supermarkets, cake shops and instant-bread bakeries, while homemade product is a stock-standard item at church fetes and main street charity cake stalls … and then there are all the banana muffins!

Well, we grow tonnes of good quality bananas in Australia, a banana cake was the first cake I made as an adult, more than 30 years ago, and my evolved recipe does produce a cake that is satisfyingly flavoursome, complex even. So there! Here it is.

Ingredients

125g butter, chopped and softened
180g sugar (dark brown with walnuts, raw with pecans)
40ml plain yoghurt
400g ripe bananas, peeled and gently mashed
2 large eggs
1 tsp mixed spice
few drops of vanilla essence
225g self raising flour, sifted
100g nuts (walnut or pecan) coarsely chopped
50g pitted dates, chopped

Method

1. Line the base of a round 20cm-diameter cake tin with baking paper.
2. Preheat oven to 165C.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter until pale and creamy.
4. Beat in yoghurt and bananas well. Add eggs, vanilla and spices and beat in well.
5. Fold in flour. Remove from electric mixer and fold in nuts (and dates).
6. Pour in to the cake tin.
7. Bake in oven for about 45 minutes, until a cake skewer tests clean.
8. Cool in tins for 7 minutes then turn out onto a cake rack.