Chocolate, banana and peanut butter cake for £1

This month's We Should Cocoa challenge run and hosted by Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog challenges us to make a chocolate cake for £1. There is an active fund raising and awareness campaign called Live Below the Line which challenges people to live on £1 a day for 5 days. Participants are asked to spend only £1 per person per day on food and drink. Having made this cake for £1, I am in awe of those who participated in the challenge as I'm not sure if I personally would manage! 

I know I am extremely lucky to live a comfortable lifestyle. I often spend a fair amount on baking and baking related items as you can probably tell from this blog. I have to say I was sceptical about making a cake for £1 as basic ingredients such as butter and eggs cost more than £1. I decided to fully embrace this challenge and to my surprise found out that you can make a delicious cake for only £1. I incorporated my favourite flavours of banana and peanut butter and used regular ingredients that I had at home. I know you can buy cheaper versions but as I only needed a small quantity I decided to work with what I had. My secret ingredient was a packet of Morrison's Saver Sponge mix for only 22p!! I've taken a picture of the shelf in case you don't believe me. The packet instruction says to add 1 egg and 5 tablespoons of water. 

I brought the cake into work and offered it up as usual. I didn't mention that this was a budget cake as I wanted to see everyone's reaction. The comments I got were  "The cake is really light and moist"; "It's really flavourful"; "Can I have the recipe please?" At this point, I'd not tried the cake myself so I had a slice and I was honestly surprised. I really thought it was going to be dry and tasteless as I had my reservations about the sponge mix and the small quantities of peanut butter and cocoa powder. You can clearly taste the banana, peanut butter and cocoa. I think the sour cream added to the lightness of the cake which was my intention hence making sure there was budget for it. If you want to make a chocolate drizzle for the cake then I would recommend reducing the amount of cocoa powder and peanut butter slightly to account for the chocolate. 

The cake I made weighed 482g and I managed to cut it into 9 decent slices as shown which makes it approximately 11p per slice! Definitely a very tasty economical cake.

I'm entering this to several challenges this month.

We Should Cocoa hosted by Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog. The challenge was to make a chocolate cake for £1 and mine came up to exactly that.

Family Foodies hosted by Vanesther from Bangers & Mash and Lou from Eat Your Veg. The theme this month is cheap and cheerful.

Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Alex from Gingey Bites this month. This challenge was created by Camilla from FabFood4All and Helen from Fuss Free Flavours.

 peanut butter, sour cream, cocoa powder, banana, egg, sponge mix 

 mix everything in a large bowl 

 ready to bake 

 fresh from the oven 

 You can see the banana bits in the cake 

Ingredients and cost 
Morrison's Saver Sponge mix 22p
1 egg 17p (24 eggs for £4)
5 tablespoons water (0p)
18g cocoa powder 21p (Cadbury Bourneville cocoa powder £1.16/100g)
1 banana 8p (0.68p/kg)
50g smooth peanut butter (Sainsury's smooth peanut butter 0.39p/100g)
30mls sour cream 12p (Morrison's sour cream 40p per 100ml)

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Pour the sponge mix into a large bowl.
• Add 1 egg and 5 tablespoons water.
• Add the remaining ingredients.
• Whisk until smooth.
• Pour into a loaf tin and bake for approximately 25-30 minutes or until risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely before slicing.