Name: Chocolate & banana cake
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 15 min
Total time: 1 h 35 min
Yield: Makes 1 large loaf cake
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 100ml sunflower oil plus extra to grease; 175g caster sugar; 175g self-raising flour; ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda; 4 tbsp cocoa powder; 100g chocolate chips or chunks; 175g very ripe bananas; 3 medium eggs 2 separated; 50ml milk; 100g milk chocolate; 100ml soured cream; handful dried banana chips roughly chopped

Chocolate and banana loaf cake, topped with banana chips

100ml sunflower oil
plus extra to grease
175g caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 tbsp cocoa powder
100g chocolate chips
or chunks
175g very ripe bananas
3 medium eggs
2 separated
50ml milk

For the topping

100g milk chocolate
100ml soured cream
handful dried banana chips
roughly chopped

Method

step 1
Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment (allow it to come 2cm above top of tin). Mix the sugar, flour, bicarb, cocoa and chocolate in a large bowl.
step 2
Mash the bananas in a bowl and stir in the whole egg plus 2 yolks, followed by the oil and milk. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Quickly stir the wet banana mixture into the dry ingredients, stir in a quarter of the egg whites to loosen the mixture, then gently fold in the rest. Gently scrape into the tin and bake for 1 hr 10-15 mins, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
step 3
Cool in the tin on a wire rack. To make the icing, melt the chocolate and soured cream together in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Chill in the fridge until spreadable. Remove cake from tin, roughly swirl icing over and scatter with the banana chips.