These days I have a repertoire of banana cake recipes. The first one is the old faithful, my Mums recipe cut from the pages a huge old recipe book, the Australian and New Zealand Recipe Encyclopedia or something like that. I can remember making it with her countless times as a child, I loved adding the bicarb to the warm milk and seeing it fizz. It is a great cake, delicious fresh for the first day or two then its great toasted with butter. If I know we are not going to get through the whole cake, I slice and freeze it, then I can just pop the frozen slices in the toaster for a quick snack.
The second recipe I discovered after I started this blogging thing on Paula's lovely blog Pod and Three Peas. I have mentioned her blog here before and cook from it regularly, she shares so many great recipes. So the next cake is hers, similar to my first one, but with the addition of sour cream. I have come to love sour cream cakes, they seem to stay fresh for ages. So this cake is a good one when you want it to last the week for lunch boxes and morning munchies. On the topic of sour cream cakes, Nigella has a good chocolate one and I love the lemon one also from Pod and Three Peas. I also want to try Paula's new version of a banana sour cream cake with yummy sounding brown butter icing.
Finally the latest addition to my repertoire is my own innovation, the dairy free banana cake. I created this so that my youngest daughter, who is dairy intolerant, could enjoy banana cake. At almost two, she has recently learnt the word "cake" and can't be left out of anything! This cake has the benefit of being a quick mix cake, I just mix it up by hand in one bowl. Its a lovely moist cake, I enjoy it and don't miss the dairy.
Old Faithful Banana Cake Recipe
125g butter
3/4 C caster sugar
2 eggs
2 -3 bananas, preferable overripe
1/4 C milk, warm
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 C plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a loaf tin or deep 20 cm round tin.
Cream butter and sugar until light, white and fluffy. Add beaten eggs, gradually, beating well after each addition.
Mash the bananas, I put them on a plate and use a fork, and beat into cake mixture. Combine warm milk and bicarb, mix into cake mixture. Sift flour, baking powder and salt (if you can be bothered, I usually can't) and fold into mixture. Spread into prepared tin.
Bake at 180C for 40 - 45 minutes. Leave plain or spread with icing, see recipes below.
Pod and Three Peas Banana and Sour Cream Cake
find the original post here
115g butter
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tbsp milk
2-3 ripe mashed bananas
Preheat oven to 180. Grease and line loaf tin.
Cream butter and brown sugar till pale, add eggs one at a time and combine. Sift in flour and baking soda, stir, add in banana, sour cream and milk stir till combined. Pop in oven for 50 - 60 minutes til skewer comes out clean. Cool and ice.
Dairy Free Banana Cake
1/2 C oil, I use rice bran oil and I imagine coconut oil would work too
3/4 C caster sugar
2 eggs
2 -3 bananas, preferable overripe
1 1/2 C plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch salt
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a loaf tin or deep 20 cm round tin.
In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar and eggs until combined.
Mash the bananas, I put them on a plate and use a fork, and mix in. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt (if you can be bothered, I usually can't) and fold into mixture. Spread into prepared tin.
Bake at 180C for 40 - 45 minutes. Leave plain or spread with icing, see recipes below.
Icings
These are my two favourites. I also want to try the brown butter icing here.
Lemon Icing
1 C icing sugar
1 lemon, juiced
Place the icing sugar in a medium bowl and add sufficient juice to make a thick paste. Spread on the cake.
Cream Cheese Icing
250g cream cheese, at room temp
80g butter, at room temp
1 C icing sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
Beat the cream cheese with an electric beater for a few minutes until smooth. Add butter and beat again until smooth. Add icing sugar and lemon juice and mix fro 30 seconds until combined.
Spread over cake.
