upsidedown banoffee shortcake

… I had a great day last Saturday demo-cooking at the Market Rasen BIG Market which was themed ‘food glorious food’, it’s the second year they’ve asked me and so I was very happy to say yes and spend the day cooking for the locals… this monthly market is a huge success and was set up as part of the Mary Portas pilot town project and is one of only a small handful of successful towns out of a very sorry bunch… the town of Market Rasen has been transformed from it’s dull and lifeless former days with new shops offering goodies to locals and visitors alike… I love being part of this success and as you know I love a little bit of showing off too… we had quite a turn out this time and once I get going, with my microphone on, I ramble on about the most peculiar things… my neighbour and good friend Tracey came with me to help and I could hear her chuckling away in the background whenever I said anything daft, which was quite often…

… they asked me to be as creative and colourful as possible for this demo so I started with a beetroot soup in bread bowls followed by some Lincolnshire sausage meatballs and tomato sauce and then finished off with a chocolate and beetroot cake… of course all the crowd are really interested in is tasting the food after i’ve cooked so you have to be clever and spend the day before preparing ‘one i’ve made earlier’… you really do have to do this or the crowd can get a bit tetchy!

upsidedown banoffee shortcake
not that i’m bragging here – well maybe a little – but can you believe that between prepping and cooking all of the above I managed to squeeze in this little beauty just for me… it’s like the curse of the cook… you spend so long in the kitchen that you’re no longer hungry but I had a hankering for something sweet and sticky and a couple of quickly ripening bananas so I found this little beauty on The Guardian website from Nigel Slater… he makes 4 small versions but I went for one large one in my 20cm springform tin…

for the caramel / toffee sauce
55g butter
140g caster sugar

for the shortcake
70g butter
75g caster sugar
1 egg – beaten
125g plain flour

2 bananas

line a 20cm springform tin

start with the pastry by creaming the butter and sugar in a large bowl till light and fluffy, then add the beaten egg and flour and beat together till a stiff pastry is formed, flatten this out to roughly the size and shape of the bottom of the tin and wrap in cling-film and pop in the fridge.

next make the sauce by melting the butter and sugar in a pan… you need to stir this continuously and it will get grainy and separate but after about 8 minutes it will come together in a glorious dark bround caramel sauce…

pour the sauce into the bottom of your tin and then lay your sliced banana on top, then remove the shortcake from the fridge and place this on top of the bananas spreading it out a little to fill the cake round

bake on 180C for about 20 mins until golden, then remove and set aside for about five minutes whilst it cools slightly, then run a knife around the shortcake and flip the tin over, it should come out in one swift move!

this being a Nigel Slater recipe I am of course entering it into the brilliant Dish of the Month bloggers challenge hosted by Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen and Susan from A little bit if Heaven on a Plate

eat and of course, enjoy!