Banana Cake

I wanted to bake a Banana cake and I found this recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook “Baking: From my Kitchen to Yours”. This cake definitely doesn’t fulfill any of my healthy eating resolution requirements, but then I thought to myself, anything in moderation is OK. So I promised myself only 1 piece a day (forgot all about the promise when the cake came out of the oven and my husband and I gobbled down the small corner pieces, mushy middle piece, crumbs et al. I had to hide the remaining cake in the refrigerator out of sight). It’s not dense, but it’s not feather light either. The cake is just right that you keep going back to it.

The other good thing about this cake is that the author makes the recipe very flexible and offers a number of options if you don’t have any of the ingredients on hand.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour – 2 2/3 cups
Baking Soda – 1 1/4 tsp
Fresh Nutmeg – ½ tsp
Salt – ½ tsp
Light Brown sugar – 1 cup (or substitute with sugar)
Sugar – ¾ cup
Banana – 4 very ripe, mashed (1 ½ to 1 ¾ cups)
Eggs – 2 (at room temperature)
Butter – 12 tbsp (1½ sticks, at room temperature)
Vanilla extract – 1 1/2 tsp
Milk – 1/2 cup (substitute with sour cream, coconut milk or plain yogurt)

Grated coconut - 1 cup (substitute with dried cherries, raisins or half coconut, half cherries/raisins)

Method:

• Center the rack in the oven and preheat oven to 350ºF. Butter 2 9”x2” round cake pans, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. Place the pans on a baking sheet.
• Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt and nutmeg together.
• Beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugars and beat at medium speed for a couple of minutes, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, followed by the vanilla and rum. The batter will have a beautiful satiny consistency.
• Now lower the speed and add the bananas-the batter will curdle at this stage-but will come together as the dry ingredients are added.
  
• Still on lower speed, add the dry and liquid ingredients alternately, adding the flour mixture in 3 portions and the coconut milk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients).
• Mix just until everything is incorporated. Switching to a rubber spatula, gently stir in the coconut. Divide the batter evenly between the 2 pans.
• Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the cakes are a deep golden brown. They should pull away from the sides of the pans and a thin knife inserted into their centers will come out clean.

• Transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and cool for 5 minutes, then unmold and invert onto another rack to cool to room temperature right side up.

To serve the cake in a fancy way, top the cake with ice cream (coconut, chocolate, vanilla and coffee flavors work great) and drizzle some chocolate syrup or ganache. What’s not to love about delicious cake, ice cream, chocolate syrup and cherry…..
This is my entry to Meeta’s Monthly mingle-Sweet Love.