Banana Cake.

Banana cake my way

For my 66^th birthday yesterday I baked myself a Birthday Banana Cake.

I tweaked the famous old Edmonds Cookbook recipe to accommodate my personal taste, and what I had available in the pantry.  The cake came out moist and tasty,  with a fairly heavy texture (which I like) but not as visually appealing as I’d wish.  I miss the little black seeds we used to get when using South American bananas.  The cake doesn’t look quite right made with Aussie bananas.  Still, it tastes fine.

One thing I have learned here is to freeze bananas when they are ripe.  They are good to eat frozen instead of icecream, and when thawed they make perfect mash for cakes.

• 180 g butter chopped and warmed
• ¾ cup sugar
• 3 eggs at room temperature
• 2½  cups mashed ripe banana
• 1 tsp Lime juice
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 Tbsp. Greek yoghurt
• 2½ cups self-raising flour
• ¼ cup shredded coconut

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C
2. Butter 2 loaf tins and line with greaseproof paper
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Mix in mashed banana and lime juice, then yoghurt
6. Fold in the flour, baking soda and coconut. Mix well.
7. Pour batter into baking tins.
8. Put cakes in oven and turn the thermostat down to 180 degrees
9. Bake approx. 45 minutes at 180 C or until cake springs back when lightly touched*
10. Leave in tins for 10 minutes before turning onto wire rack.
11. When cool ice with lemon or chocolate icing (Since I am on a diet and shouldn’t even be eating cake, I decided to forgo this step).

Note: This cake is usually baked in a 20cm round cake tin.  But mine is gone so I had to use two loaf tins.  That is handy actually, because I can freeze one cake for later.

*if baking in a single round tin, about 55-60 mins.

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