I
had four bananas, slowly turning black on the kitchen counter, giving me that
judgemental look as if to say, ‘yes, you manage to eat all the biscuits well
before they go off, but look at us – unwanted and unloved’ and realised it was
time to find a good banana cake recipe.
This cake is adapted from a Dan Lepard recipe and caught my attention because I have never seen banana and ginger combined and they are two of my favourite flavours. I only made one minor tweak – changing his glace ginger for stem.
The flavour of this cake is rich and indulgent and gets better with age – the dark sugar seems to get stickier and more treacly. It works well as a companion to a mug of tea, but is also great warm with custard for dessert. The smell of it baking drove me half insane – sugar and spice; if there are happier kitchen smells I can’t think what they are!
The sponge is soft and lighter than you might expect. The ginger is subtle and doesn’t overpower the banana. Personally, being a ginger fiend, next time I make this cake I would up the ginger – probably with a teaspoon or two of ground ginger.
Don’t let the plain looks fool you; this is actually a glossy beauty and has become my go-to banana cake recipe.
Ingredients
For
the cake:
200g dark muscovado sugar
300g ripe bananas – this is approx. 2 large bananas
125ml flavourless oil suitable for baking – I used light olive oil
4 eggs
75g stem ginger – finely chopped
200g wholemeal flour
3 tsp baking powder
200g dark muscovado sugar
300g ripe bananas – this is approx. 2 large bananas
125ml flavourless oil suitable for baking – I used light olive oil
4 eggs
75g stem ginger – finely chopped
200g wholemeal flour
3 tsp baking powder
Method
Preheat
the oven to 180C/fan oven 160C/350F/gas mark 4.
Line
a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper.
Put
the sugar and bananas in a bowl and mash until almost smooth – as long as there
are no big lumps it will be fine.
Beat
in the oil and eggs.
Stir
in the ginger.
Add
the flour and baking powder, stir well, then pour into the tin.
Bake
for 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Leave
to cool in the tin for 30 minutes or so before de-tinning and leaving to cool
completely on a wire rack.
Serve
in generous slices.
Bask
in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.
Eat.
10 comments:
Ah! "Warm with custard ....." that sounds like a suggestion from Mr CC! It looks lovely and I'm surprised no-one has tried the banana/ginger combo before now.
I've not noticed banana and ginger cake before either! I wonder why? It's got to be a great combo..... yours certainly looks moist, fluffy and delicious!
I'm with you on the ginger front though...... no point in having a ginger cake unless it has a good spicy hit!
It looks delicious, ginger and banana, a match made in heaven!
What a lovely combination of flavours; it looks delicious. I had a couple of those brown bananas too, so made a chocolate and banana loaf. Yours sounds much more interesting.
Look so moist and delicious !! I love banana and ginger !! I have to make this :)
Ooh, I've got 4 bananas looking at me blackly and I LOVE ginger. I've not come across the two combined before either. I might just make this tomorrow. If I do, I'll up the ginger as you suggest.
The texture in that second photo is incredible! I definitely want to try out this recipe the next time there are unloved bananas in the fruit bowl. People have been healthy and eaten them all recently, how dare they!
This looks delightfully squidgy - a good way to use up bananas on the turn.
I made this the very next day and posted it on my blog. What a wonderful cake. I added ground ginger as you suggested and it ended up with a really good balance of banana to ginger flavour.
Thank you! I've just made this cake and it's gorgeous
Post a Comment