How to make chocolate bundt cake with salted caramel icing

Themed days, weeks and months are getting completely out of control – but when it gives us a reason to make this cake, we'll turn a blind eye.

So what is it this time? National hairbrush day? Llama wool week? Or perhaps Oc-toe-ber, in which we all pay tribute to the digits at the end of our feet?

These special days/weeks/months are running out of control, so much so that they are doubling, trebling and quadrupling up on each other. So much so, in fact, that at the time of writing it’s currently both ‘Sober October’ and ‘London Cocktail Week’. No wonder we’re all confused.

This week, as well as the aforementioned mix of sobriety and drunkenness, it’s also apparently National Cake Week.

And since we’re clearly never going to successfully swim against this tide, we might as well float back and enjoy being swept along. Particularly if it gives us an excuse to bring out the baking gear and create the utterly sinful-looking cake on this page, a chocolate bundt cake recipe which comes courtesy of Waitrose.

Chocolate banana bundt with salted caramel icing

Makes 12 servings. 25 minutes prep time, 45 minutes cooking time.

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Ingredients

For the cake

  • 200g unsalted butter at room temperature, plus extra to grease
  • 50g cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting
  • 4 ripe medium bananas
  • 3 tbsp soured cream
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 75g caster sugar
  • 100g light brown muscovado sugar
  • 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 225g plain flour
  • 50g corn our
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 75g miniature Daim bars (or dark chocolate), finely chopped, plus extra to decorate

For the icing

  • 200g light brown muscovado sugar
  • 75g unsalted butter
  • 100ml double cream
  • 25g dark chocolate, chopped
  • 1⁄2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 190 ̊C, gas mark 5. Melt 2 tsp butter and use to brush the inside of a 2.5 litre bundt tin, getting into all the nooks and crannies. Dust with cocoa, covering every surface, then hold the tin upside-down and tap to get rid of the excess.
  2. Mash the bananas with a fork until smooth, add the soured cream and vanilla; set aside.
  3. Tip the caster and muscovado sugars and 200g butter into the bowl of a freestanding mixer; beat well until pale and light – about 3-4 minutes. Gradually add the egg, scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula as you go. Now add the banana mixture, our, corn our, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, 50g cocoa and a pinch of salt, mixing to combine thoroughly.
  4. Fold the chopped Daim bars (or chocolate) into the mixture, then spoon into the tin. Level with the back of a spoon and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 30-40 minutes, until well risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 2-3 minutes, then turn out onto on a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
  5. For the icing, gently heat the sugar, butter and cream in a small saucepan until dissolved. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat, add the chocolate, vanilla and a large pinch of salt and stir until silky smooth; leave to cool for 5-10 minutes.
  6. Carefully spoon the icing over the cooled cake, allowing it to drizzle over the sides. Leave to set for a few minutes before scattering the top of the cake with more chopped Daim bars. Leave to set completely before serving.