Banana Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cake

This just may be the best, most delicious banana cake you will ever chance to eat! In other words….this is to die for….full of scrumptiously moist pieces of banana, pecan nuts and chocolate chunks with delicate undertones of spice…all topped with a decadent caramel glaze which soaks into the cake creating the most heavenly experience ever found in a cake…

• Ready In: 1 hr 5 mins
• Serves: 10-12

Ingredients

• 2  cups plain flour
• 1  teaspoon cinnamon
• 1⁄2 teaspoon  grated fresh nutmeg
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1  teaspoon salt
• 1  teaspoon baking soda
• 3  large eggs
• 1 1⁄4 cups  sunflower oil
• 1 3⁄4 cups caster sugar
• 1  tablespoon  pure vanilla essence
• 3⁄4 cup  coarsely chopped toasted pecan nuts
• 3  ounces  good chocolate, broken into chip size pieces (I favour Green and Blacks)
• 3  ripe bananas, peeled and diced

• CARAMEL TOPPING

• 1 1⁄4 cups  of firmly packed soft light brown sugar
• 1  tablespoon milk
• 1  tablespoon  double cream
• 4  tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Directions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/350*F. Grease and flour a 12 cup tube or bundt pan, shaking out all the excess flour.
2. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, salt and baking soda. Set aside. Beat together the eggs, caster sugar and oil with your electric beaters on medium speed until the sugar is totally emulsified, about 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla essence. Slowly beat in the dry ingredients, scraping down the bowl to make sure it all gets mixed in well. Fold in the pecan nuts, chocolate and banana chunks very carefully with a rubber spatula taking care not to mush the bananas up. Scrape into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 50 minutes. Test with a wooden skewer to see if it is done. It should come out clean if it is. If not, bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.
4. In the meantime combine all the topping ingredients in a small saucepan over low heat and cook until the butter and sugar are melted and it begins to boil. Simmer for about 10 minutes while you are waiting for the cake to finish.
5. Remove the cake from the oven and poke holes all over the hot cake (without removing from pan) and spoon the caramel glaze over the top, stopping every now and then to let the cake absorb it. If it starts to pool, poke some more holes in the cake. Let cook completely in the pan on a wire rack before removing and unfolding it onto a plate. I then put another plate on top and flip it over until the flat side is on the top again. Delicious!