You make a cake with them, obviously.
I realise I'm wandering into dangerous and overpopulated territory with a recipe for banana cake, and I do mean cake here, not bread. Everyone has their favourite banana baked confection, whether it's a loaf or a square pan or a tube pan or studded with chocolate chips and I just got distracted thinking about how much I want someone to feed me homemade banana bread.
I have a favourite banana bread, but as I mentioned this is about cake. Moist, tender, properly banana-ish cake. This cake comes from the queen of all cakes, Rose Levy Beranbaum, so you know it's good. The key is she makes a kind of milkshake by pulverising the bananas in a blender with sour cream, vanilla and eggs, creating a smooth and elegant cake.
One caveat - I tweaked the method for this cake quite a bit. Rose used a stand mixer for her cake, and mixed the butter right into the flour, something I can never quite manage with a hand mixer at home. Instead I just creamed the butter with the sugar and added wet and dry ingredients in halves.
There's also a sour cream chocolate ganache involved for some reason, and that reason is it's a sour cream and chocolate ganache.
Banana cake
Via Rose Levy Berenbaum
- 2 bananas
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 tbsp cornflour
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 140g butter, well softened
- 1 tsp bicarb soda
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
For icing:
- 160g chocolate
- 3/4 cup sour cream
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease a 23cm round cake tin, dust with flour and knock out the excess. Measure the flour into a small bowl and remove two tablespoons of flour. Add the cornflour, bicarb, baking powder and salt and whisk it together.
Combine eggs, vanilla, sour cream and bananas in a blender and pulse until foamy and milkshakey. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl using an electric mixer. Add a third of the flour, followed by half the liquid, then flour, then liquid, then flour, stirring well after each addition.
Pour the mixture into your prepared cake tin. Bake for 30-40 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool cake completely on a wire rack.
When the cake is cool, melt chocolate over a pan of simmering water. Remove from heat and whisk in sour cream until thick. Spoon generously over the cake and stir immediately.