Banana Crumble Cake

This morning I decided to bake this luscious Banana Crumble Cake. The recipe is from my new book The Fairtrade Everyday Cookbook, which is packed full of great recipes. If you care about food and where it comes from and want to support fairtrade farmers and workers, this is the cookbook for you. I had some fairtrade bananas going ripe in the fruit bowl and this cake seemed like the perfect excuse to use up those bananas. It isn’t a big fancy cake but a lovely simple everyday cake, which can be served with your favourite cup of coffee/tea or in bowl of hot custard (my son has requested the latter option for his dessert tonight).

Banana Crumble Cake

Ingredients
Topping:
55g Fairtrade golden granulated sugar
30g plain flour
½ tsp Fairtrade ground cinnamon
30g salted butter

Cake:
45g salted butter, softened
75g Fairtrade golden granulated sugar
1 large egg
½ tsp Fairtrade vanilla extract
75ml semi-skimmed milk
110g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 medium (or 2 large) Fairtrade bananas, sliced

Method
Preheat the oven to 190oC/375oF/Gas Mark 5. Lightly grease a 20cm (8in) square or round baking tin.
Make the topping first. Mix the sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a bowl, then rub in the butter, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. (I use a food processor)

For the cake, cream together the butter and sugar in another bowl.

Mix in the egg, vanilla and milk.

Sift together the flour and baking powder. Then add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.

Spread the batter evenly in the prepared tin.

Place the banana slices evenly over the batter, then finish with the crumb topping. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a knife placed in the centre comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.