Top Celebrity Chef endorsement!!!!!

Ok, ok, I am totally flogging this donkey now but… remember how I won that award for my Nutty Banoffee Fairtrade cake?
I’ve only gone and been endorsed by a super-top chef. This could potentially be my first and last award so, I am determined do an Oscar-worthy speech going to milk it for all it’s worth.
This is what Allgra McEvedy said:

“A well deserved win my dear – went down a storm with all the family!”

Find me a vowel. Oh. My. Goodness.

A Cordon Bleu-trained chef said that about a little Farmer’s Wife?

If you want to try the cake out for yourself. Here is the recipe:

8oz Fairtrade Caster Sugar
8oz Wholemeal flour
8oz butter or butter alternative-margerine etc
1 tsp baking powder
4 Fairtrade eggs (ok they are from my hens who get a great corn price for their eggs)
1tsp cinamon (optional)
3 Fairtrade bananas
2tbsps milk or cream
100g of Fairtrade nuts. I used peanuts but you can swap these for a Fairly traded nut equivalent of your choice.

For the filling: A can of consensed milk,
1 Fairtrade Banana
Some Fairtrade nuts retained from the 100g above.

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line and grease two 8-inch baking tins (I use frylite spray for greasing).

Chop your peanuts, You can use a food processor but I prefer bigger chunks in my mix and, to be fair, hate washing it so I did it by hand with a knife. Plus, feel like a celebrity chef when I’m chopping nuts, I have no idea why.

Sieve the flour into a bowl. I used a strong wholemeal bread flour so I sieved it a few times.
Add the Fairtrade sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder and cinnamon and mix with an electric mixer.

In another bowl, chop the banana and add the cream and mix with the electric mixer. Add the banana to the cake mix and give it another blast with the mixer.

Add the chopped nuts and fold in quickly and fold into the mixture.

Divide mixture between the two tins and bake for 20 minutes on two shelves then swap over for the remaining 15-20 minutes.
Please note, you know your own oven. During the last 15-20 minutes, please check your cake. You will know it is done when it is just browning around the edges or, a skewar comes out clean.

Allow to cool in tins for ten minutes, then turn out onto wire wrack to cool completely.

Next the dulche de leche. Now, I googled this to get it right and there are many, many ways to do this. The old fashioned ways on the hob in a pan of water or in the oven take hours so, in true cutting-corners style, I choose the microwave option.

You blast it in two-minute intervals on a medium setting and whisk in between until a) it has turned a toffee colour or b) it has been cooked for at least eight minutes.
Please make sure you whisk the mixture whilst wearing an oven glove as it is very, very hot.

At eight minutes, I chopped in another banana (the heat of the dulche de leche cooked this banana-yum).

Allow to cool. Put a small amount between the cakes (enough to cover one half of cake) and place on top of each other. Then spread the rest of the gooey, sticky loveliness on the top of the cake and sprinkle some more Fairtrade nuts (I did chop these a little finer).

So there you go. My Nutty Banoffee Cake.