Subtle spice hits

Clever spicing adds warmth to a fruity pineapple and banana cake.

This pineapple and banana cake is a bit of fun and very easy to make. Obviously the riper the bananas, the better the flavour. I always forget to freeze over-ripe bananas, but they are fine to freeze in a plastic container, either peeled or unpeeled depending on how you want to use them eventually.

A recipe like this would be fine with unpeeled ones as you would need them to thaw out fully, then peel before using. But freezing peeled bananas in plastic freezer bags is very handy if you're making smoothies or anything similar, as you can just plop them straight in and whizz up your concoction .

Pineapple and banana cake

Pineapple banana cake
Pineapple banana cake

350g self raising flour

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1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp mixed spice

175g light muscovado sugar

4 eggs

200ml sunflower oil

2 large bananas, very ripe, mashed

100g fresh pineapple, very finely diced

Finely grated zest and juice from 1 orange

100g walnuts, chopped

Icing

2 x 200g packs cream cheese

200g icing sugar

Juice and rind of 2 limes

Heat the oven to 180 degrees/gas 4. Line a 24-centimetre spring-form cake tin. Sieve together the flour and baking powder if you’re being diligent (I wasn’t and didn’t). Add the mixed spice and sugar and mix well. Whisk or beat together the eggs, oil, pineapple, orange juice and zest and walnuts. Add to the dry ingredients, and fold in.

Make sure it’s mixed very well and then pour into the tin. Cover it loosely with tin foil and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Ours took closer to the hour until the skewer came out clean, but we felt it was a little overcooked on the outside. So check it after 45 minutes. Allow the cake to cool down fully on a rack.

Mix the ingredients for the icing together. It will seem a bit too runny at first, but will firm up once it’s gone back into the fridge. When the cake is cool, ice it and serve. You can add some more zest as decoration.

Domini recommends: Verjus, the juice of unfermented grapes. A splash added to everything gives a lovely savoury flavour, as well as acidity without sourness. When you want to add lemon juice to something, try verjus instead. Great on sautéed mushrooms and other vegetables and in salad dressings. From Fallon Byrne, Roy Fox’s