Banana Cake with Peanut Buttercream Icing

I love using bananas in baking, but wanted to try something different to the standard banana loaf. I also think the flavours of peanuts and bananas go perfectly together, so I incorporated peanut butter into this recipe for the icing (if you have a peanut allergy, you could use almond butter instead). I had some friends come to visit me for my birthday and they absolutely loved it - I hope you do too!

Ingredients

Cake mix:

• 225g caster sugar

• 225g self raising flour

• 225g dairy free butter (I usually use Pure)

• 3 ripe bananas

• 4 eggs

• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 4 eggs

Icing:

• 250g dairy free butter

• 250g icing sugar

• 250g peanut butter

  *if you choose to pipe on top of your cake instead of completely covering the top layer, you’ll likely be left with excess icing, so if piping on top worth cutting these 3 ingredients by 50g each!

Toppings:

• Handful of chopped walnuts

• 50g chocolate of choice (I prefer dark chocolate, which is usually cheaper than the free from ranges and often dairy and gluten free!)

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees (fan)

• Combine the cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl (minus the bananas) and mix well

• Mash the bananas in a separate bowl with a fork

• Add the bananas to the cake mix and slowly whisk

• Put the cake mixture into 2 cake tins and ensure the mix is split equally and evenly

• Bake for 25-30 minutes

• Whilst the cakes are baking, make your icing by whisking the icing sugar, peanut butter, and butter together

• Chop the walnuts and shave the chocolate using a grater

• Take the cakes out of the oven and leave them to cool completely

• Once the cakes are cooled, spread a thick layer of buttercream icing on top of one, and then sandwich the other cake on top

• Pipe the rest of your icing on top of the cake, and top with walnuts and chocolate