Banana Caramel Loaf

I have a disgusting addiction to condensed milk.

I am not sure where it comes from – probably my mother, who attended various boarding schools as a child and has regaled me with stories of what sounds like a fairly St Trinians-esque Irish headmistress who preferred hill walking over hard work in the classroom and ice skating in the quad over isosceles triangles. Scattered among these stories of a childhood that I completely cannot comprehend, are the stories of sweets smuggled in to dorms in regulation navy knickers and cans of condensed milk. The upshot of this is I can pretty much guarantee that there will be a can in the cupboard. I've got a pretty delicious blondie recipe that I never quite get round to blogging that uses it. One day soon, I promise.

One of the other blogs I love to read is the Recipe Rifle. A few weeks ago, she posted a recipe for Banana and Condensed Milk bread. Well, helloooo. Not only does it include condensed milk, but any cake with fruit in it always counts as a health food in my book.

I was getting pretty excited about this – got to Wednesday which is my usual shopping delivery day – cue some overripe bananas just begging for the condensed milk treatment. Plus, tea was going to be vegetable pasties and potato wedges so the oven was going to be on anyway - it would have been a shame not to have capitalised on that. It was meant to be.

But then – disaster – no condensed milk. Don’t tell me how that happened. However, what I did have was a tin of Carnation caramel. No caster sugar either, but some soft brown, and the end result – a totally delicious banana loaf. I didn’t use nuts because the kids aren’t allowed to take anything with nuts in it to school, but if I’d been baking at the weekend I would have definitely stirred in some walnuts with the bananas.

Banana and ~~Condensed Milk~~ Caramel Loaf

75g butter, softened
25g soft brown sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 397g can caramel
225g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
3 ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat your oven to 180c (170c for fan ovens).

Butter & line a 2lb loaf tin.

Beat the softened butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy then add the beaten egg. Beat in the tin of caramel. Sieve together the flour and baking powder, and fold into the caramel mixture.

Fold in the mashed banana and then pour into the tin. Bang the tin a couple of times to level out the mixture, then pop into the oven and bake for an hour, by which time the cake will be beautifully golden and smelling utterly heavenly.