Sunday 23 March 2014

Banoffee Peanut Butter Cake

This showstopper bake won't disappoint. I saw the recipe in the March 2014 edition of the Waitrose Kitchen Magazine - and as soon as I saw the recipe I knew I had to try it! For those of you who follow my blog regularly you'll know that I recently made my own peanut butter *here* and so this recipe married perfectly with using up some of my homemade stock. 

The cake consists of two banana bread style dense round sponges, sandwiched together with caramel, sliced banana and fresh cream, topped with the second cake, peanut icing and smashed up homemade peanut brittle! Wowsers!

This cake is not for the faint hearted - at 646 calories per 12th of the cake it is a mega treat! I just had one slice on Friday night, and haven't touched any more - one slice is better than none though right? It's been hard not to devour the rest - but I'm pretty sure the final 3 slices will be eaten by somebody over the next few days!

Banoffee Peanut Butter Cake

SERVES 12

Ingredients

CAKE

100g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
250g unsalted peanuts
100g honey
200g light soft brown muscavado sugar
8 ripe bananas (4 mashed, 4 sliced)
1/2 lemon juice
3 eggs, separated
25g crunchy or smooth peanut butter
225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp caramel or toffee sauce
150ml double cream, softly whipped

PEANUT BUTTERCREAM

50g unsalted butter, softened
100g crunchy or smooth peanut butter
150g icing sugar
2 tbsp double cream 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180/Gas Mark 4. Lightly grease two 20 cm sandwich tins, and line the bases with parchment. Toast the peanuts in a dry pan set over a medium-high heat, tossing regularly until golden (about 4-5 mins). Set aside and wipe the pan clean. Gently heat 75g of the honey and 75g of the sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Cook over a medium-high heat, without stirring, for 2-3 minutes, to make a rich, golden caramel. Tip in the peanuts and stir gently to coat, then pour onto a parchment lined tray. Cool completely, then chop/blitz or bash with a rolling pin in a sealed bag, until roughly ground - you want a mixture of smaller and bigger pieces. 

My mixed peanuts in their caramel goodness

2. Cream the butter with the remaining 125g sugar and 25g honey until light and fluffy, then beat in the mashed banana, lemon juice, egg yolks and peanut butter. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt and 3/4 of the caramelised peanuts (use the smaller bits and keep the bigger pieces for decoration). In a clean bowl or in your mixer, whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks. Carefully fold through the cake batter until evenly mixed.

3. Divide between the two tins and bake for 30-35 minutes until a skewer into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack, remove the parchment, and leave to cool completely. 

My two cakes cooling

4. For the buttercream, use electric beaters or your stand mixer to mix together the butter, peanut butter and icing sugar. Increase the speed for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in 2 tbsp double cream until smooth and spreadable. 

5. Transfer one cake to a cake stand/plate and spread over the caramel sauce - don't worry if some spills over the sides - it will add to the homemade look of the cake. Top the caramel with half of the sliced bananas, then the cream. Sit the second cake on the top and cover with the buttercream. Decorate with the leftover sliced bananas and the caramel peanuts. I used the fine powdery pieces of the peanut brittle to push against and stick to the wet sides of the cake - although this wasn't in the original recipe it really helped dress up the "messy" sides. 

T'ah d'ah……! 

There are just no words!

Who could resist a slice of this?

I added 12 slices of banana around the top of the cake like a clock face to help make it easy to portion out as the cake serves 12, handy! 

You will not regret baking this cake. Except perhaps after your 3rd slice when you realise you may have just put on half a stone :-D

Go on, treat yourself, it is the weekend after all! 

Mrs B

xxx