My mum is a big fan of banoffee, that divine combination of banana, caramel and cream. She used to make it as a recess cake that was called Athol’s Bread and Butter. Apparently Athol liked the cake so much he wanted to have it instead of his bread and butter. More recently the gluten free version has been piled onto bought biscuits, but we wanted to improve on this with something homemade. My mum decided it would go nicely with gingerbread. We tried it out at my grandparents’ house, where we were staying for Christmas.
I thought some of you would enjoy the vintage Mixmaster too. The bowl spins as well as the beater and the speeds are labelled according to their purpose. I particularly liked the option for whipping potatoes.
I liked the measuring spoons too, the copper is so shiny!
Creaming the butter and sugar I missed the innovation of a dust cover on the mixer. My modern Kenwood is less charming, but it’s less messy too.
We had a recipe from the Commonsense Cookery Book (a vintage recipe to go with our equipment), but we made a few variations. We decided to add cinnamon as well as ginger. We rolled out the dough as one big square and cut it into portions after it was cooked.
We topped each square with caramel and then banana. This is the part where you need to ignore your blood sugar and be generous with the caramel.
Finally we added the whipped cream. Don’t think about your cholesterol.
The finished product is a very decadent dessert. I really liked the gingerbread with caramel, but maybe everything tastes better with caramel.
Ingredients
125 g butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 1/4 cups gluten free plain flour
1 tsp bicarb soda
3 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tabs golden syrup
For topping
1 can Nestle caramel top and fill
bananas
whipped cream
Method
Cream butter and sugar. Add the egg and combine. Gradually add sifted flour and spices. Warm the syrup in the microwave to make it easier to mix. Stir well to form a dough, adding a little flour if required. Roll out to about 3 mm thick. Bake 180 C for 15 min.
When it has cooled cut into squares. Top with caramel, bananas and whipped cream.
