Banana Cake

Hurray! Today is my mum’s birthday and the entire family came by to celebrate with us. And with a birthday comes cake. A banana cake in this case.

Since a while I’ve started to love bananas more and more. I used to never eat fruit. A bad habit, yes I know, but I just didn’t like most fruits we have lying around the house (apples, tangerines). So instead of going to the store and buying fruit that I did like, I just never ate it.

But I’m taking a turn in my life now and want to be a bit healthier. Which means watching the amounts of food I eat (since over-eating is nice when you’re eating but not so much after), going out skating two times a week AND start eating fruit. So now I’m being a good girl, eating a banana and a pear a day.

So I offered to bake a cake for my mum’s birthday party and started going through the book and I knew I wanted to make this banana cake the moment I saw it. Granted, this is far from healthy but hey, it’s a birthday cake.

This banana cake is very firm so if you want your guests to eat any of the snacks you’ve made for after the cake-and-coffee-round I advise you give them a small piece each. But the flavor is very nice! The bottom is still a tiny bit moist and the cake has soaked up all the flavor of the banana put into it. The frosting on top is nice, not too sweet and it gives the cake a nice and creamy touch.

Banana cake

Adapted from: 500 cakes

Yields: 8 persons

Note: I made the recipe twice since I wanted a big cake for the entire family, so the cake in the picture is twice the size of what the recipe is for

Ingredients for the cake

• 2 ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 175 ml vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 300 gram light brown sugar
• 150 gram flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• ½ teaspoon ginger powder

Ingredients for the cream cheese frosting

• 200 gram cream cheese
• 85 gram confectioner’s sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 banana (optional to put on top of the frosting)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven at 180 °C (350 °F) and grease an 7 inch cake pan. If you use one of these (like I do) I suggest you cover the bottom with baking paper.
2. Mash the bananas in a large bowl and whisk the eggs through the mash.
3. Stir the vegetable oil and milk through the mixture.
4. Sieve any lumps out of the sugar before adding it to the mixture. Stir well.
5. Sieve the flour, baking powder, cinnamon powder and ginger powder into the mixture, add a pinch of salt and fold it into the banana mixture.
6. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes. The recipe said to bake the cake for 1 hour but mine (while making twice the recipe but using a bigger cake pan) was done at 45 minutes.
7. Let the cake cool.
8. In a bowl, mix the cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar and lemon juice until it’s a smooth, creamy mixture.
9. Spread the frosting over the cooled cake. Decorate with the third banana and sprinkle a bit of cinnamon powder over the top.

~ Enjoy!