Banana cake with chocolate frosting

Yum...

This recipe comes from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. The recipe is actually for banana and chocolate cupcakes, but I decided to make one big cake instead. My friend Aaron helped me make, and so consume,  this cake, which was  just as well really as it’s really very rich and doesn’t have a very long shelf life due to the inclusion of bananas – definitely a cake to share.

Looks like a normal chocolate cake, doesn't it?

But NO! Behold the banana-ry innards!

Sweet sweeeeet banana-ry innards...

Generally I’ve found The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook a bit hit-and-miss. Some recipes I’ve tried from it have turned out utterly rubbish, and their insistence to write each recipe around the use of a freestanding electric mixer – a piece of kit which I think most home cooks are unlikely to have – really annoys me. This recipe, however, seems to be one of the good’uns.

Aaron has since replicated this recipe adding raisins to the banana cake, and reported excellent results. Next time I make this I think raisins, possibly soaked in rum, will be added.

Banana cake with chocolate frosting

For the banana cake:

120g plain flour

140g caster sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp ground ginger

Pinch of salt

80g unsalted butter

120ml whole milk

2 eggs

120g peeled and mashed banana

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate frosting:

300g icing sugar

100g unsalted buter

40g cocoa powder

40ml whole milk

Preheat the oven to 170ºc/gas mark 3.

Cream together the sugar and butter, then add the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Pour in the milk and vanilla extract and mix well. Add the eggs one at a time. Finally, mix in the mashed banana.

Pour the mixture in a baking tin and bake for about 50 minutes, until cooked through. If you are unsure whether the cake is completely cooked, stick a kebab skewer into the middle – if it comes out clean, the cake is done.

Make the chocolate frosting by creaming the icing sugar and cocoa into the butter, then slowly adding the milk.

Wait for the cake to cool, cut in half, sandwich the two halves together with the frosting, then cover the entire cake with the rest.

Yummers.