With all the revision and exam stress, the amount of baking occurring in my house as definitely increased. It was my housemates that gave me some inspiration to dig out this classic recipe from my collection.
I’ve always loved banana cake, I think is a simple but tasty recipe that can be cooked whilst you do other stuff around the house and doesn’t need much babysitting. Equally, it also has some fruit in it so you can totally convince yourself it is healthy.
The reason I dug this recipe out was due to the smell in my kitchen. Bare with me, because it’s not as weird as it seems. For a week or so our kitchen gradually had an increase in potent banana smell. Turns out one of my housemates had bought a massive bunch of bananas and they had not been used at all. As they were gone beyond eating I asked if I could have them, she said yes and I got baking. Managed to get two cakes worth out of them and weeks worth of satisfaction during my revision breaks.
Honestly though, I love this cake for the simplicity in baking it. It’s a quick mix and can sit whilst you bake batch after batch. The chocolate chip addition always makes seem more of a cheeky treat then without them, but the cake works brilliantly either way. The cake is also easy to freeze when you make tonnes of the stuff. Simply tightly wrap a cold loaf in clingfilm before putting in the freezer for upto three months.
This banana cake recipe contains two types of chocolate chips white and dark, if you want to only have one type I would suggest the darker flavour, just combine the weights of chocolate chips into one category. Alternatively switch one out for chopped walnuts.
Banana Loaf with Chocolate Chips (Makes 1 Loaf)
Ingredients
- 3 Very Ripe Bananas
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup of butter
- 1 cup of caster sugar
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 1tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 cups self raising flour
- 50g white chocolate chips
- 50g dark chocolate chips
- pinch of salt
Method
- Preheat oven to 180c. Grease and flour a loaf tin. You need to do this to stop it sticking but also help the heavy batter to climb the loaf tin.
- Mash the bananas into a paste before adding to your mixing bowl. Melt the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds or until melted and stir in with vigour.
- Add the baking power, salt and vanilla extract give a good mix before adding the sugar and egg. Mix until combined into smooth liquid.
- Once combined slowly fold in all the flour except for a table spoons worth, until just mixed together. Place the left over flour and chocolate chips together and shake until chips are covered in flour.
- Add the chips to the mix and fold until the chips are combined in batter. Transfer into loaf tine and place int he oven to bake for 1 hour. Check the cake at around 50 minutes and ensure it is baked until skewer in the centre comes out clean. If you leave the mix to sit before baking give the mixture a quick stir before adding into tin, this ensures that the chocolate chips have not sunk to the bottom.
- Remove cake from oven and allow to cool in the tin. Remove and serve, or wrap and freeze.
Banana cake can be eaten cold with a cup of tea or toasted quickly in a frying pan for breakfast. Crumble on ice cream sundaes and a great addition to a banana split.
abigailgrows 