This is a superb recipe that makes use of stinky, horrible, brown bananas that normally you would just throw away. It’s definitely a winner. Thank you, Nigel Slater!

Bits you’ll need

• Mixing bowl
• Spatula
• Kitchen scales
• Food mixer (or wooden spoon and a strong arm)
• Loaf cake tin—ideally 20cm x 12cm
• Baking parchment or grease-proof paper

Ingredients

• 175g unsalted butter, softened
• 175g sugar (half light muscovado, half golden caster)
• 75g hazelnuts or chopped mixed nuts
• 2 free-range eggs
• 175g self-raising flour
• 2 very ripe bananas (about 250g total weight)
• drop vanilla extract
• 175g good-quality dark chocolate—my preference is Green & Blacks 90% cocoa solids
• a little Demerara sugar

Preparation

Gather all the tools from the list above so you’re ready to get stuck in.

Crank the oven up to 170°C (150°C for fan-assisted ovens) and by the time we’re done mixing the cake batter, it should be hot enough to go.

Line the base and sides of a loaf tin with baking parchment.

Whack the butter and sugars into your mixing bowl and beat together with the food mixer or wooden spoon. Keep on beating until the mixture is light and milky-coffee-coloured.

If you’re using hazelnuts, lightly toast them in a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes, rub them in a tea towel to remove their skins, then grind quite finely.

Slowly add the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar, then mix in the toasted hazelnuts or chopped nuts and self-raising flour.

TIP: If you add the flour slowly, you don’t need to sieve it.

Peel the bananas and chop them the small pieces. I generally go for about 0.5cm cube. This way the banana takes less time to cook. If you want your cake to be a bit sticky and gooey, use larger chunks of banana. Blitz or smash up the dark chocolate into fine chunks. Gently fold the vanilla extract, the bananas and the chocolate chips into the cake mixture, turning gently and taking care not to over-mix or else the banana chunks turn to gloopy mess.

Scoop the cake batter into the loaf tin. Dust with a little Demerara sugar. Whack it the oven for between 1 hour and 1 hour 10 minutes. If the cake starts to brown before the batter firms up, cover it with a piece of tin foil.

It’s good to eat the cake as-is, or serve with a scoop of top quality vanilla ice cream.