Ingredients
50g dates 
1 tsp vanilla essence 
2 tbsp boiling water 
125g butter, softened, plus extra for the tin 
125g light brown sugar 
3 eggs 
2 large ripe bananas or 3 small bananas – the darker the skin the better 
50g natural yogurt 
200g plain flour 
1 tsp baking powder 
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda 
100g pecans or walnuts, a couple left whole and the rest roughly chopped so some are small and some large 
Juice and zest of half a lemon 
25g banana chips to decorate (optional) 

Toffee sauce 
100g light brown soft sugar 
25g butter, cut into chunks 
100ml double cream 

Method
Heat the oven to 160c. 

Chop the dates fairly small and add the vanilla essence and boiling water, mash with a fork and put to one side. 

Butter 1 large loaf tin (or 2 small) and line with baking parchment. 

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy - either by hand or by machine.   

Mash the banana with a fork until mostly smooth.  Mash the dates again and add to the banana.  Add the yoghurt and mix then add the eggs and mix again.  In thirds add this to the butter/sugar mix.  A word of warning, once you do this the mixture is going to look extremely curdled, don’t be alarmed, it will look better when the flour is added. 

Add the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and carefully fold through by going around the edge and through the middle.  The idea behind this is the less you mix the lighter the sponge. 

Add three quarters of the nuts and carefully stir through.  Put into your loaf tin and full to around the three quarter mark.  If I have spare batter I just make little muffins.  Over the top scatter half of the remaining nuts, keeping hold of the whole ones. Put into the oven and cook for around an hour.

While this is cooking make your sauce, put half of the cream all of the butter and all of the sugar into a small saucepan, and cook on a medium heat, stirring until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved.  Increase the heat and, stirring continuously, cook until the sauce is a toffee colour.  Once you are happy with the colour, remove from the heat and add the rest of the cream and stir.  Put to one side.  Please be careful, this sauce is extremely hot so don’t be temped to dip your finger in to taste! 

Once the hour is up, test your cake, a skewer should come out completely clean with no batter.  If some batter is on the skewer put back for 10 minutes and test again. 

Once cooked, leave your cake for 10 minutes in the tin to cool and then remove to a plate, cover with the sauce and scatter over the remaining nuts and the banana chips.  I break some of the banana chips just in my hands.  If the sauce is a bit stiff just gently heat a little until the mixture is of pouring consistency.