Pancakes and peanuts

Sat at work on Wednesday morning, my boss and I were discussing the previous evenings success of various pancake toppings. My personal favourites were chocolate chips from my basket of cake decorating paraphernalia. And golden syrup (but not together) My boss has a 4 year old son who has serious food issues. The only thing he really loves to eat is marmite on toast- as a marmite lover I can see the attraction, but can also see why my boss and his wife are quite worried. I think they have visions of him going on a hot date one day and be sat there with a couple of slices of Hovis and a jar of the black stuff. Anyway, as a result they like to try and tempt him at mealtimes with all kind of weird and wonderful things, and this was the first occassion little Charlie had tried a pancake. To his credit he had a mouthful of pancake before pulling his favourite Bart Simpson face and pushing it to one side. Mum suggested drizzling a bit of honey on some pancake. Nope, not interested. Peanut Butter? (Yuck, that cannot have looked attractive) Still No. Whilst all this was going on, Jack, Charlies little brother was having a delightful time squeezing all manner of toppings on his stack of pancakes and finally settled on his favourite -honey and peanut butter. Together. I sat back in horror when I was told, but apparently it is a fabulous combination and has to be tried.

From pancakes my thought process moved onto cake (as is the norm) and I thought about peanut butter and honey cake and Googled it. Oh yes, there is such a recipe. And I have made it this evening whilst listening to Chris Evans and dancing around the kitchen to 'Jump' in manner of Hugh Grant in 'Love Actually' It is lovely, very very easy (the cake, not the dancing) and simple to make but looks quite disturbing whilst mixing. Stick with it though!


Peanut Butter and Honey Cake
* 1/2 cup peanut butter (crunchy if you want texture, smooth if not-or a mixture)
* 1 cup runny honey
* 3 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 3/4 cups plain flour
* 2.5 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 tsp salt

Cream peanut butter and honey together. Add eggs and vanilla extract. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Add to the creamed mixture. Pour into a lined 9 inch square pan and bake at 180 C for 35 mins. (or 350 F)
That's it! It really is easy..I did cover mine with a square of greaseproof paper after 25 minutes to stop the top from browning too much. Leave it to cool slightly before peeling the paper off, and then leave to cool totally before slicing and spreading with butter. Mmmm.....
The cake above is travelling over to East Anglia tomorrow to my Grandad. I don't think I will be admitting straight away what's in it though. I doubt very much he has ever tried peanut butter and I want to break him in gently!

p.s- not necessarily in the same league as the 'Sticky Ginger Cake' but much less faffing about!!