Of baking, butterscotch bananas and sugar burns

I've had three bananas in the fruit bowl for a good 3 weeks now. They started out under-ripe (because a certain someone in this household will only eat bananas that are bordering on green. Any sign of brown on the skin and they're a step too far. Makes buying them to keep a giant pain in the arse. But I digress...) and for the past week could tastefully be described as ready for the compost heap (if I had such a heap. Which I don't. I'd like to, but we have no space to put the compost once it composts. I digress again). Anyway, we've ALL had the overripe banana situation to deal with many many times, and naturally banana cake, banana loaf, banana muffins and/or banana smoothies are normally the way to go. I'm bored of all of those options. I mean, banana cake etc is lovely and all, but it's a bit same old same old and lacking in imagination. My friend Kat (who also blogs and is one of the only readers of this one! Hi Kat!) has been doing some rather inspirational baking of late and it has inspired me to venture beyond the tried and tested. So today I've made butterscotch banana cake in lieu of straight up banana cake. The main difference between this cake and the norm is that you make a caramel sauce and then add the overripe bananas to it before stirring that mixture into your cake mix (the cake mix in question being made with 2 types of flour and oil/yoghurt, not butter).

A little note - if you're as clumsy as I am (which is to say, considerably), then you need to be very careful and maybe wear long sleeves while making the caramel. Two tiny splatters of caramel on the delicate skin of your inner arm will sear with the fire of a thousand flames and leave nasty red welts that will alarm anyone who sees them. But sugar burns aside, this really is a delicious cake...rich, moist and intensely banana-y. Definitely a step up from the usual banana standbys.

Ingredients
250g caster sugar (I didn't have caster so just used regular. Seems to be fine)
250g banana flesh, chopped into 2cm pieces
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
175ml sunflower oil
2 large eggs
150g plain flour
75g spelt, rye or wholemeal flour (I used spelt because I happened to have it!)
2 level tsp mixed spice (I didn't have mixed spice, so used 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of all spice)
2 level tsp baking powder
½ level tsp bicarbonate of soda
50ml plain yoghurt

Line a cake/brownie tin with non-stick baking paper. Tip 150g of the caster sugar into a frying pan with 25ml water, bring to the boil, then cook over a high heat until the sugar turns to a dark reddish caramel (don't stir - just sort of swirl the pan occasionally). Add the banana pieces, butter and vanilla, and simmer until the bananas break up in the caramel and the mixture is thick.

Scoop into a bowl and leave to cool. Beat the remaining 100g sugar with the oil and eggs until thick and slightly aerated, then beat in the bananas and the yoghurt. Sift the flours, spice, baking powder and soda together two or three times (throwing the bran back in), then fold this through the banana mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the tin, heat the oven to 180C (160C fan-assisted) and bake for about 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

I think this would be really good warm with icecream - or the banana caramel mix would be good with icecream by itself! The cake is good too.