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!
