I made a promise to myself when I started this blog, that I'd stay away from the woosy, womanly arts of sweetness and light. Dessert is so goddamn girly. And acknowledging its presence on menus, let alone detailing recipes for end-of-meal sugar fixes would compromise, if not negate my misogynistic tendancies, and reputation as a general hard bitch.
So it was with raised fists that I repeated the following mantra:
I won't "do" confectionary.
Or maybe it was:
I don't "do" confectionary.
OK, OK.
I can't "do" confectionary. There. HAPPY NOW?
The last time I tried to make something which would have fallen into the lolly section of the 1975 Better Homes and Gardens cookbook which was my cooking guide as a child, it failed.
Not once, it failed. Not twice, it failed. Not three times, it failed.
FOUR TIMES. FOUR TIMES IT FAILED.
Four times I tried to make caramel syrup. And four times the sugar and water bubbled away for ten minutes before becoming cloudy rather than golden. And four times the sugar then crystallised out of solution and wrecked my saucepan, my kitchen sink; and eventually, my bidet (where I poured the third batch after blocking the sink plug hole with the second).
After the fourth time I'd run out of caster sugar and self worth. And I vowed never again to attempt anything that resembled a confectionary product, and I vowed to stick to sarcasm and the savoury dishes which go with it. If you can't join them, beat them and run away.
But yesterday, I was faced with a dilemma. Three of them, in fact. Three overripe bananas, sitting in my fruit bowl, waiting to be made use of either through composting, or through baking. There's not much else you can do with overripe bananas, see, and baking is quite acceptable in The Bitch School of Cookery (even if it requires sugar) because it involves the flexing of arm muscles and the slamming of oven doors. Brutal, oui? So I pulled out my trusty cookbooks (because even culinary genii like myself require guidance in foreign lands) to find a recipe for banana cake. But almost all the recipes contained sour cream, and the dairy compartment of our fridge was all Old-Mother-Hubbarded out of it. And yes, I could've walked to the shops, but truthbeknown: I couldn't be bothered.
Flicking through another book I found a recipe for a toffee topped banana cake, sans sour cream. Toffee. Toffee. I had flashbacks to the caramel sauce disaster, and picked up the bananas to compost them. But then I had a lightbulb moment.
Surely if a cake involved "hard" confectionary like toffee, it could also involve "soft" confectionary, like, say, butterscotch?
Butterscotch is EASY. Butterscotch involves cream, butter, and sugar. Add a saucepan, a low flame and a wooden spoon, and five minutes later Bob's yer uncle (or your aunt, depending on the gender reassignment laws of the state you live in).
Butterscotch doesn't set like toffee. After cooking, when it's heated it stays syrupy and bubbles. So what if I used it to make a sort of pudding / cake hybrid - baked, but with pockets of squishy, syrupy goodness throughout?
Reading back over this now, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. But obviously the confectionary- Evolutionists were looking out for me yesterday, because, by jove, it actually WORKED!
This recipe will make enough "cake" to appease about eight - ten people for dessert with icecream or cream to serve. You can bake it in advance and then nuke the slices in the microwave for thirty seconds to heat through just before serving. You can get the butterscotch off whatever it sticks to (and it will stick to stuff, this recipe is delicously messy) by running hot tap water over it. If you tell anyone I was responsible for the creation of this type-II-diabetes- inducing monstrosity, I WILL roast your bones for stock. Are we clear? Good.
Cake
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (about two large bananas)
2 ripe bananas, sliced
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup plain flour
1/3 cup self raising flour
1 tespoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons allspice
Butterscotch sauce
2/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
80g unsalted butter
300mL cream
Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Grease and line a 22cm round springform baking tin with baking paper.
2. To make the butterscotch sauce, place the butter into a small saucepan and melt over a low heat. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved in the butter. Add the cream, stir over low heat for two minutes or until combined, and then allow to cook over a low heat for another couple of minutes, until smooth and thickened slightly.
3. Combine egg, brown sugar, vegetable oil and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Sift the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, then stir to combine. Stir in the mashed banana. Set aside.
4. To assemble: Spoon the cake batter into the prepared tin. Top the cake batter with the sliced banana. Pour 2/3 of the butterscotch sauce over the top of the cake and banana slices.
5. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool in tin for five minutes before releasing springform and sliding from the tin base onto a plate. Serve immediately with ice cream or cream and the reheated leftover butterscotch sauce, and a late picked riesling. Otherwise, allow to cool then cover with cling wrap and store in the fridge for up to three days.
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