Friday 4 February 2011

mmm... banana cake




With three very sorrowful looking bananas languishing on my desk at work since last week it definitely seemed the right time for a banana cake!  Speedy and fool-proof in my trusty Kitchen Aid, here’s the recipe:

3 ripe and squishy bananas
150g unsalted butter
185g light muscovado sugar
2 large free-range eggs
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
A pinch of salt
150ml milk
50g chocolate of your choice
50g chopped walnuts or pecans (for nut-free people like my Mum, just up your chocolate!)

-       Preheat the oven to 180° and grease a loaf tin. 
-       Cream the butter and sugar until it’s fluffy and slightly paler than the mix you started with.
-       Gently beat your eggs together and add them gradually with your mixer on the “stir” setting (much easier to do this in a measuring jug so it doesn’t make a mess as you pour the eggs in!). 
-       Sift in your flour, bicarb. and a pinch of salt, then mix again and gradually add the milk.
-       Mash your bananas with a fork and fold them in along with your chocolate and nuts.
-       Pour into your greased tin and make a shallow well in the centre as this cake will really rise in the middle.
-       Put your tin in the oven and wait for all those yummy smells to start wafting round the house…  Check after an hour with a cake tester – it should come out clean, but this is a very moist cake so I check it in a couple of places to be sure it’s done.
-       Cool in the tin as long as you can bear it.  This cake is amazing whilst it’s still warm (Mr B likes his with a little bit of good vanilla ice cream!), but it’s lovely and firm when it cools, perfect to parcel up for lunchboxes.

Thinking about it today, I may try this with peanuts/crunchy peanut butter next time, as they’re such a great match with bananas and chocolate – I’ll be sure to report on the results!

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