Chocolate chip banana and peanut butter cookie cake

Naughty, gooey, chocolatey, melting hot peanut heaven – sometimes we just deserve it. An easy crowd pleaser. And a fun one to make with the kids. We have been talking about making a cookie cake for years, ever since Jemima first came to stay at Lucy’s in Northumberland and her mum had freshly baked an extra large cookie cake (Lucy’s favourite) and oh did Jemima like it. It’s been a staple in the larder at Lucy’s since she was little – always the same recipe, a simple milk chocolate chip cookie mix. Things were slightly spiced up in our teens when a Millie’s cookie birthday cake was all the rage (do they still exist?) and we had about one a month for 5 years, sometimes you got lucky with the double chocolate chip with the red and white icing, and then there was the double decker – a massive cookie sandwich with icing as a filling – no wonder the puppy fat took a while to shift. So when it comes to baking your extra large cookie you can either spread the mixture on a baking tray and leave it to cool then cut up as a snack (it lasts well) or load it into a skillet / oven proof dish and serve it as a dessert – hot with melted chocolate straight out of the oven served with good quality vanilla ice cream – YUM. Mix it up – use either milk, white or dark chocolate; change the peanut butter for almond; or swap the banana for dried fruit, apricot or sultanas work well, we naughtily thought that if you were serving this for Easter then you could swap the chocolate for Cadburys mini eggs. Sometimes it feels that we have all got a bit caught up with ‘clean eating’ and it’s taken out all the fun. For us it’s about balance – living well and eating well. Fresh, seasonal dishes make us happy, it’s what we crave most of the time – but we also crave pasta, naughty cheesy numbers and occasionally a damn good cookie cake. On this occasion, it’s only right to go all out and throw clean eating out the window.

INGREDIENTS

    150g soft brown sugar

    75g caster sugar

    175g butter, softened

    225g plain flour

    1 large tsp bicarbonate of soda

    1 tsp vanilla extract

    1 egg plus one yolk

    50g chunky peanut butter

    200g milk or dark chocolate, chopped into chunks

    1 banana chopped into chunks

    sea salt

     

    ice cream to serve 

INSTRUCTIONS

1.Pre heat the oven to 180c

2.Place the sugar and the butter in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer beat the butter mix for a couple of minutes till light and fluffy. Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, vanilla and egg and combine. Fold in the peanut butter, banana and chocolate.

3. Place the mixture in either one large or 4 small heavy based oven proof pans (or a baking tray is fine too for a rectangle cake). Bake for about 15 minutes till golden, leave to cool slightly and sprinkle with sea salt. Serve with ice cream.