This Morning | Food | Cookery with Levi Roots 123

Cookery with Levi Roots

Published: Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 4:56PM

Entrepreneur Levi Roots, 48 was propelled to fame in February 2007 after appearing on the TV programme Dragon's Den. His talents secured him a £50,000 investment from two of the Dragons to fund his hot and spicy Caribbean Reggae Reggae Sauce.

Since then Levi's cookery career has gone from strength to strength and he will even be releasing a Caribbean cookbook soon.

Levi shares with us two delicious Jamaican puddings - Hot Sugar Cane Bananas with Coconut Ice Cream and a juicy Jamaican Ginger Cake.

Jamaican ginger cake
This cake is usually made in a loaf tin, but I reckon it’s cool in a ring tin too
Serves 8

100g/31/2oz butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
100g/31/2oz dark soft brown sugar
3 tbsp golden syrup
150ml/5fl oz milk
1 large egg
150g/5oz plain flour
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g/3oz raisins

- Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas Mark 2. Grease a 20cm/8in ring tin or a 900g/2lb loaf tin with butter
- Put the butter, sugar and golden syrup into a pan and heat gently, stirring, until melted. Add the milk, pour into a jug and leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then add the egg
- Sift the flour, ginger, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Pour in the wet ingredients and gently mix together. Mix in the raisins
- Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Turn onto a wire rack and leave to cool.

Hot sugar cane bananas
Serves 4

4 ripe bananas
knob of butter
4 tsp dark muscovado sugar

- Make a slit down the length of the bananas, without cutting right through. Open the skin slightly and dot the bananas with the butter and sprinkle each one with the sugar
- Put the bananas into a shallow dish and microwave on High for 3–4 minutes until the skins turn black and the banana flesh is warm and soft
Roots recommends...Haven’t got a microwave? Then bake them in the oven preheated to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 for 15 minutes.

Easy coconut ice cream
Serves 6

300ml/10fl oz double cream
125g/41/2oz sweetened
Tenderised coconut or desiccated
Coconut or grated fresh coconut
218g/7oz can sweetened
Condensed milk
200g/7oz carton fresh custard
1 tbsp vanilla essence
2 tsp mix of vanilla, almond and lemon extract (or 2 tsp mixed Caribbean essence)
Pinch of ground nutmeg

- Put the cream in a large bowl and whip until softly peaking, then add the coconut. Stir in the condensed milk, custard, vanilla essence, Caribbean essence and ground nutmeg
- Line a 900g/2lb loaf tin with clingfilm. Pour in the coconut mixture and freeze for 6 hours
- To serve, scoop into balls or invert onto a plate, remove the clingfilm and slice into 6 pieces.