John Whaite's showstopping Banoffee Cake

john whaite

With the Great British Bake Off returning this week, how better to celebrate than by baking a showstopping cake? This banoffee cake is more related to my experiences on Bake Off than you might first think, and it’s all to do with that blue-eyed monster, Paul Hollywood.

One of the main questions I am asked when discussing Bake Off is “how do you impress Paul Hollywood?” – usually asked by a menopausal woman with a glint in her eye and a rather sorry, neglected-looking husband in tow. Well, it has nothing to do with wonderbras or supermodel looks, oh no. The answer lies in a “girthy” banana. He loves bananas, especially bananas that are caramelised or sweetened in some way.

Before I incite any more homoerotic fruity fun, here is the recipe. Dedicated to the man himself.

Ingredients
For the Cake
280g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
280g caster sugar
280g, about 3 large, very ripe bananas (the blacker the skins, the better)
1tsp vanilla extract/bean paste
5 large eggs
280g self raising flour
1tsp salt

For the Filling
350g unsalted butter, at room temperature
500g icing sugar
½ can carnation caramel
2 bananas, sliced into thin disks

Equipment
3 x 20cm round cake tins, greased and lined with baking paper
Disposable piping bags

Method
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan. For the cake whisk the butter and sugar until very pale and light and the sugar is more or less dissolved. I do this in my KitchenAid with whisk attachment, but you could easily do it by hand with an electric beater.

Step 2: 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 between the three tins (or if you’ve only got one tin then bake in batches) 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.

Step 3: For the buttercream filling, whisk the butter until so pale it is almost white – this will take about 5 minutes in a KitchenAid. Add the icing sugar and whisk for a further 5 minutes, or until you have a smooth, white icing.

Step 4: To assemble the cake, take one layer of cake 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 circle inside the banana circle, then finish with a spiral of buttercream so the cake is completely covered. Repeat the piping with the second cake, then top with the final cake. Finish with some even blobs of buttercream on top.

Follow John Whaite on Twitter @JohnWhaiteBakes or visit his official website.

John Whaite’s showstopping Banoffee Cake

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