Banana and Berry Loaf Cake

This cake is delicious. Sweet, moist and slightly tart. It is so moorish and not sickly sweet.
It is definitely best served straight from the oven, slightly warm dusted with icing sugar.
It does keep for a couple of days, but can go a bit soggy.
If you know you have guests coming round this is perfect. It can be demolished in one go and everyone gets to eat it at its best.

I am quite a frugal cook. I don't tend to go out and buy ingredients specifically to bake things. I like to use up what I have, or make use of old bananas. We grow berries in the garden and am fortunate enough to be given a good supply by friends and relatives. I get so many over the summer I actually have an entire drawer in the freezer dedicated to blueberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and blackberries. So this is my go to cake if I want to use up some fruit.

Recipe:
For a standard 2 lb loaf cake tin.

2 overly ripe bananas mashed
175g caster sugar
225g self raising flour
100g baking margarine e.g. stork. (or softened unsalted butter).
1 tsp baking powder
2 free range eggs
Approx 100g Berries. You can use a mix of berries or stick to one kind. Blueberries are particularly great. Add them frozen if possible. It saves them breaking up when you mix. Or just add carefully.

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/Fan 160C.
2. Line your baking tin.
3. Measure all ingredients (apart from fruit) into a large mixing bowl and mix well. I use an electric hand whisk. But by hand is fine.
4. When all nicely mixed, gently stir in your fruit.
5. Add the mix to your prepared tin and bake on the middle shelf of your oven for 1 hour. Oven times vary. You may need 5-10 mins more. But if your skewer comes out clean it is cooked.
6. Remove from oven and leave to cool.
7. Best served warm from the oven lightly dusted with icing sugar.