honey, ginger and banana loaf cake

The steroids that i’m taking as part of my plethora of drugs, leave me with a constant pang of hunger.  It’s quite unusual.  My mouth seems to be always just about to start salivating in the way that your brain thinks a Sunday roast is about to be served.  I can even taste it sometimes.  Inevitably I have piled on a few pounds.  Friends and family are being very kind and telling me it’s not noticeable but when I present myself with the shapeless, melted blob that I see in the mirror it clearly is.  I know I have to take the time to recover and it will take time for me to get back into shape but I can’t stand this horrid feeling that I need to eat.  The one plus side is that I am trying my hardest to fill the hunger pangs with green and healthy foods.  There’s a plethora of fresh vegetables on constant rotation in the kitchen and a lot of experimenting going on with all kinds of flavours… it’s just sometimes only cake will do…

honey, ginger and banana loaf cake

This cake is an experiment.  I don’t usually mess around with cake ingredients because baking is such a science but for reasons inexplicably unusual we’ve totally run out of sugar at the cottage and i’m trying to keep it that way because it means I won’t bake cakes till I resupply and i’m trying not to resupply until Christmas… of course this cake makes the whole sentence (and point) above entirely moot but I’m sure you feel my pain.  It was Jewish New Year back in September and this means honey and ginger cake. Something ridiculously sweet to symbolise the sweetness of life and freedom.  Mum makes her mums incredible version of this cake which is a golden syrup cake that she shared with me on numerous occasions whilst I was in hospital.  I’ve become a little addicted to the sweet cloying taste of syrup with ginger so I wanted to try and make my version of the cake, taking it on to somewhere slightly different once again.  The banana adds its own dimension of sweetness which makes the whole cake sweet and sticky and quite sublime.

i’ve used a rough version of the ‘weigh-the-eggs’ method for this cake and although that is a tried and tested method for cake baking i’ve never done it with oil before… weighing liquid always seems a bit odd but it’s worked very well and i’m really pleased with the fudgy texture of the cake – one tip; weigh the oil before the honey.  This way the honey will slide straight off the scale bowl.

• 2 large (150g) free-range eggs
• 150g vegetable oil
• 150g runny honey
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 160g self-raising flour
• 1 ripe banana – mashed well
• 2 tablespoons Greek yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

pre-heat the oven to 170C and great and line a 1ltr loaf tin

place the oil, honey and eggs into a large bowl and beat together well.  Mash the banana with the golden syrup and yoghurt and add to the liquid and beat in, then add the dry ingredients and beat together well until you have a pale brown liquid batter

pour into your loaf tin and bake for 45-50 minutes or until the cake is risen and golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean

the moment it comes out of the oven, brush a little runny honey over the top, then leave to cool in the tin for 10 mins before turning out onto a wire wrack to cool completely.  Because it’s an oil cake with no sugar it will drop but this is supposed to happen and you’ll end up with a gloriously fudgy cake that, eaten warm, is a beautiful thing.

eat and of course, enjoy!