Banana Chocolate Cake

Surprise, surprise, yet another banana cake, you must be thinking. We don't usually buy bananas as fruit, as I am carbo-averse. Hubs, lets just say he has a sensitive stomach... my girl loves bananas, only found out this week though, when we had a overflowing (over-ripening flow) of bananas at home. In total, I had purchased between 15 and 18 bananas just to experiment with Nigella's Banana Rum Cake.

September seems to be a busy month of birthdays. My girl had her birthday on Monday and she asked me to help her bake a cake for her friend! I seem to have become the "official baker" and have to bake presents on her behalf too. So I got her involved, afterall, it was HER present for her friend, right? She made the stencil by cutting out the letters "Happy B'day XT" on a piece of paper. Ok, the words looked a little fuzzy :P I have since bought 4 wilton stencils for cake decorations to cope with such requests to bake birthday presents, erm, cakes.

This cake was easy to bake as well, just stir and bake. Of course, there was the additional step of melting chocolates and butter. My kids love this cake, that was what they said anyway. Next time I bake this, I would cover the top with a layer of ganache as it has lots of small holes all over. This is also a kids-friendly cake (read: no alcohol).

Banana Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

90g self-raising (SR) flour, 90g all-purpose (AP) flour
1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder, 170g butter
1 tbsp corn oil, 150g chocolate
100ml hot water, 80ml milk
170g brown sugar, 3 eggs
200g bananas (sliced)

Method

1. Grease and line 10cm x 32 cm baking tin. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.


2. Combine SR and AP flour, baking powder, soda and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl.


3. Melt butter, oil, chocolate, hot water and milk over low heat. Remove from heat, combine with brown sugar and eggs.


4. Stir egg mixture into flour mixture together with banana slices until well blended.


5. Spoon batter into prepared tin. Bake in oven for 40-45 minutes or until cooked. Stand for 10 minutes before turning on to wire rack to cool.


6. Decorate with ganache, bananas and/or chocolate chips (optional).

Source: Easy Stir 'n Bake Cakes by Kevin Chai