Banana Chocolate Cake
This year has been a banana-depriving year for a lot of us living in Australia. Why? A cyclone swept through about 90% of the main banana growing areas in the early part of the year and flattened most of the plantations. The result was, and is, that the price of bananas leaped sky-high to around AUD $12.00 per kg for most part of this year. Thus for most of this year, I have not had a taste of banana at all, not willing to pay that much when there are a lot of other fresh fruits around to fill its place.
Then in the past couple of months, I suddenly discovered tinned bananas! I ask you, tinned bananas, yes, I can’t believed my eyes. So it was home with these tinned bananas for a taste test since they were quite cheap. They must have been picked and canned at just-starting-to-ripe stage because they are quite firm in texture, not mushy as I would have thought tinned bananas would become. Therefore not really nice to eat straight from the tin. But would be better used in baking, I decided.
The Can of Tinned Bananas I bought recently.
As it happened, I have been hooked surfing a couple of New Zealand cooking websites recently and one recipe has me interested because it had rave reviews from a lot of people. And it just happened to be a Banana Cake recipe! So into the kitchen I went and tried out the recipe, albeit with a couple of minor changes.
This is the result, a Banana Chocolate Cake. Wow, what a moist and soft cake it turned out to be! It was also very easy to make, just simply beat to combine dry and wet ingredients until smooth, and that’s it! As the tinned bananas were quite firm, I decided to dice them rather than mashing them as suggested in the original recipe, so you can taste the little chunks of bananas inside the cake. Although I have used tinned bananas here due to circumstances, fresh bananas would have been better and nicer. I must also admit though, I undercooked the cake because I used a smaller tin than suggested to make a ‘higher’ cake and did not bother to check it after baking for 1 hour – resulting in a sinking middle! But luckily it did not affect the texture of the cake, which has easily become one of the best cakes I have ever made!
Adapted from the recipe 'Best Banana Cake' posted by mackenzie2 (4 Sep 2006) at TradeMe, New Zealand.
Makes one square 20cm cake.
[Ingredients]
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1¼ cups (275g) caster sugar
½ cup canola or corn oil
200ml sour cream
300g (net weight) firm but ripe bananas
1¾ cups (260g) plain flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons bicarb of soda
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease a deep 20cm square cake tin and line base with baking paper.
2. Mix and sift together plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and soda. Set aside. Slice the bananas lengthways into quarters, then slice across into about ¼cm thin dices.
3. Beat eggs and sugar briefly until combined. Add oil and sour cream, beat again to combine. Fold in sliced banana and flour mixture until smooth.
4. Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 70 minutes, or until cooked when tested.
I took out the cake after 60 minutes of baking and did not bother to check if it was fully cooked through – and the middle started to sink after a couple of minutes, I quickly put it back and baked a further 10 minutes but the damaged was done!
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.
Then in the past couple of months, I suddenly discovered tinned bananas! I ask you, tinned bananas, yes, I can’t believed my eyes. So it was home with these tinned bananas for a taste test since they were quite cheap. They must have been picked and canned at just-starting-to-ripe stage because they are quite firm in texture, not mushy as I would have thought tinned bananas would become. Therefore not really nice to eat straight from the tin. But would be better used in baking, I decided.
The Can of Tinned Bananas I bought recently.
As it happened, I have been hooked surfing a couple of New Zealand cooking websites recently and one recipe has me interested because it had rave reviews from a lot of people. And it just happened to be a Banana Cake recipe! So into the kitchen I went and tried out the recipe, albeit with a couple of minor changes.
This is the result, a Banana Chocolate Cake. Wow, what a moist and soft cake it turned out to be! It was also very easy to make, just simply beat to combine dry and wet ingredients until smooth, and that’s it! As the tinned bananas were quite firm, I decided to dice them rather than mashing them as suggested in the original recipe, so you can taste the little chunks of bananas inside the cake. Although I have used tinned bananas here due to circumstances, fresh bananas would have been better and nicer. I must also admit though, I undercooked the cake because I used a smaller tin than suggested to make a ‘higher’ cake and did not bother to check it after baking for 1 hour – resulting in a sinking middle! But luckily it did not affect the texture of the cake, which has easily become one of the best cakes I have ever made!
Adapted from the recipe 'Best Banana Cake' posted by mackenzie2 (4 Sep 2006) at TradeMe, New Zealand.
Makes one square 20cm cake.
[Ingredients]
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1¼ cups (275g) caster sugar
½ cup canola or corn oil
200ml sour cream
300g (net weight) firm but ripe bananas
1¾ cups (260g) plain flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons bicarb of soda
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease a deep 20cm square cake tin and line base with baking paper.
2. Mix and sift together plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and soda. Set aside. Slice the bananas lengthways into quarters, then slice across into about ¼cm thin dices.
3. Beat eggs and sugar briefly until combined. Add oil and sour cream, beat again to combine. Fold in sliced banana and flour mixture until smooth.
4. Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 70 minutes, or until cooked when tested.
I took out the cake after 60 minutes of baking and did not bother to check if it was fully cooked through – and the middle started to sink after a couple of minutes, I quickly put it back and baked a further 10 minutes but the damaged was done!
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.
posted by SeaDragon @ 22.11.06
23 Comments:
Hi, there! Big fan of your blog. I LOVE YOUR recipes, they are so authentic and remind me of my mom's cooking. What is your background? Do you live in the UK? I'm in the states but will be moving soon I'll be taking these recipes along with my mothers' and hopefully i won't miss home as much. Thank you!
I may try to convert this to a recipe for my steam oven. So far all the things I have baked have become piles of mush in the steam oven. I am working on it. I think with some extra eggs and bread ceumbs it might work.
Anyways nice site!
Chad
Steam Oven Recipes Cooking
Thanks for the recipe!
Can't wait to try it out :D
neeters,
Thanks for your kind words :)
I don't have any background in baking - just a hobby and a love of collecting all sorts of recipes. I'm in Australia.
steamoven.net,
Very interesting to hear of your interest in converting the recipe for steam oven, have never use it myself before so have no idea what effect it will have. Good luck with it anyway :)
^cherie,
You're welcome.
goody, I have got banana right now. Going to give this a try once mine fully ripen.
Thanks!
Hi Seadragon,
I am also in Australia (Sydney) and would be ever so grateful if yoou could post up a picture of the banana tin you used! I am quite desperate for banana bread/cake but dont want to pay $12 for bananas.
Also if you could tell me where you bought the tin bananas that would be great!
Thanks Heaps!
Eventhough Banana is so expensive here, but I still have to buy the fruits because that is the only fruit my son will eat without forcing him. The price of Banana in WA has drop a bit, ie we can buy it in shop market for $8.99 a kg. Once it goes as high as $15.00. By the way how does a can banana look liked?
I might try this cake for my son's kindy party. They are having a 'graduation' party before the school end. Look easy enough.
Anon. from sydney,
I will put a pic of the tinned banana up here later. The pic is already in my forum under Food Gallery, I think in November post, or October.
I bought it from one of the big Asian supermarket chain here in Melbourne called KFL. I think it should be available in larger Asian supermarkets in Sydney too, I'm sure.
flower,
Yes, the price has started to drop this week here as well, the lowest I've seen is $6.00 per kg, thank goodness :)
tried this cake. taste very nice. i substitute sour cream with yogurt. thanks!
Thanks for dropping by SD! A Happy New Year to you too. May all your dreams come true for 2007!!!
hi
do you make chinese new year goodies for sale?
germaine,
Sorry, no, I don't.
Dear Seadragon,
Why do you need both soda bicarbonate and baking powder in this recipe? I tried out your recipe but the texture turned out to be a bit chewy, just like steamed cake.
ceppie,
Baking soda, an alkali, is usually used in recipes containing cocoa powder to react with the acidity of the cocoa. Baking powder however can react by itself after liquid is added or heat is applied. It is also added in this case to give the cake more 'rise' in addition to the bakinng soda.
You said your cake is chewy? It is supposed to be quite soft and fluffy in texture... It is hard to judge where you went wrong without more info, did you follow the recipe to the dot? Did you use electric beater to mix? Did you fold in the flour by hand?
Dear Seadragon,
I replaced sour cream with yogurt and hand-mixed (with spatula) those ingredients. instead of slicing the bananas the way you did, I mashed them. By the way, is there any difference if i use an electric mixer or hand mix those ingredients?
The plain banana cake recipe which i normally follow requires only soda bicarbonate to be added into the plain flour.
ceppie,
Yes, most banana cake usually used bicarb soda as a leavener.
As for hand mixing vs using electric mixer, usually it is just a matter of undermixing or overmixing. I was thinking maybe if you've used electric mixer to mix, you might have overmixed the mixture to make it chewy. But since you've done it by hand, so that doesn't come into question anymore.
So you subs yogurt for sour cream, so far you're the third person to say that to me when making cake using yogurt and not having satisfactory result... When you said chewy like steamed cake, I take it to mean spongy but still soft? If this is the case, then it is most likely because you used yogurt instead, I do find yogurt cake to be not as soft as sour cream cake due to the reduced amount of fat.
Or is it chewy but dense in texture (like honeycomb cake)? In this case, can it be that either the bicarb soda or baking powder is not active anymore?
Another thought, did you used Dutch-process cocoa? This recipe should use normal cocoa powder, not Dutch-process..
I am using the ordinary cocoa powder. I will take note of your advice and try baking it again next weekend. 在此向您拜个早年. 祝您新年快乐,万事顺意.
Dear Seadragon,
I tried baking this cake again following your advice. It turned out very nice and fluffy. Thank you.
Hi seadragon! Tried out this cake and subs yoghurt for sour cream as it's very hard to get sour cream here. Did all the mixing with a hand-held electric beater. When folding in the flour & banana, I used short bursts of medium speed only (I guess if you use a processor, it would be the pulse button). Cake turned out great - it will go into my family cookbook. The banana chunks look very nice against the dark choc cake. Thank you very much for sharing!
ceppie & judy,
Glad to hear both of you have successes with this cake :)
I've done your chocolate banana cakes a number of times and everyone who tasted it loved it. It's my favourite banana cake now. Thanks. Jane
Jane,
You're welcome, very happy to hear of another success for this recipe.
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