banana cake

I quite like this banana cake recipe because it uses an extra egg white, which means I get to use the spare egg yolk for this choc chip cookie recipe (which yields a pretty awesomely chewy cookie). It also happens to be delicious.

I've used this recipe a few times now, and on my most recent occasion I did have a couple of fundamental deviations (unintentional) from the original recipe - but this didn't affect it at all. Firstly, the recipe asks for 1 cup of mashed banana, however I only had 2 smallish medium bananas which didn't come up to 1 full cup, and I thought I could have done with another banana at the time. However it still had a good banana flavour, so I'd say it doesn't have to come up to 1 cup as long as you have good quality tasty bananas. Secondly I accidentally baked it in my loaf tin instead of the round cake tin (that's what happens when you plan to cook many cakes in one day I guess...) but I just added about 10 minutes to the cooking time, and ended up with something that looked like banana bread :)

Verdict: Great recipe if you have enough ripe bananas
Score: 8/10

Ingredients
1½ cups (210 g) flour 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ¾ cup (150 g) sugar 2 tablespoons (55 g) melted butter (salted or unsalted) 1 large egg white 1 large egg, at room temperature 1 cup (250 ml) banana puree, made from about 2 very ripe medium-sized bananas ½ cup (125 ml) sour cream, regular or low-fat ½ teaspoon vanilla extract 1/3 cup (60 g) chocolate chips or 3 tablespoons (30 g) cocoa nibs (I omit these, might try adding them one day though!)

Method
Butter a 9-inch (23 cm) square pan and line the bottom with a sheet of parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350F (180 C). 1. Sift together in a bowl the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Mix in the sugar. 2. In a large bowl, mix together the butter, egg white, egg, banana puree, sour cream, vanilla and espresso, if using. 3. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and stir in the wet ingredients with a spatula until almost mixed. Add in the chocolate chips or cocoa nibs and stir until just combined, but don’t overstir: stop when any traces of flour disappear. 4. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until the center feels lightly-springy and just done. 5. Cool on a baking rack.