It's a Miserable Day so Let's Bake a Cake!

I wasn't much in the mood for venturing out of the house today. It has been very gloomy here, overcast and damp. Yuk! I thought instead that I would cheer myself up with a cake using up ingredients that I already had in the house.

In the fruit bowl were a couple of over ripe bananas and I had some margarine left over in the fridge. I found a basic recipe for a banana cake and jazzed it up a bit with spiced rum and desiccated coconut.

Banana Rum Cake

4oz margarine
6oz sugar (I used a mix of light muscovado and demerara as that is what I had to hand)
2 eggs
2 over ripe bananas
8oz self raising flour
2oz desiccated coconut
2tbsp roughly of spiced rum or any other rum!
demerara sugar for sprinkling

Pre-heat oven to Gas Mark 4/180 degrees C/350 degrees F

Grease a large loaf tin. Cream together the margarine and sugar in a large bowl and mix in the eggs. Add a little flour to prevent the mixture curdling and mix in well. Mash the bananas in a separate bowl and add to creamed mixture.

Stir in the flour and then add the rum and coconut and mix together. Put mixture into loaf tin, sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake for about 1 hour until middle is cooked through.

Allow to cool in tin for a few minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool. The demerara sugar on the top gives a nice crunchy contrast to the moist texture of the cake.

I have never made this cake before and it was a bit of an experiment. I have no idea of its keeping qualities as I ate a slice whilst it was still steaming from the tin! I don't suppose there will be much left of it by tomorrow. I will have to make another one!