Moist Banana Chocolate Cake with Walnuts - Simple Recipe for a Tea-Time Cake

Wherever I may live, bananas ripening too fast is one of the biggest household issues I deal with. I buy these flawless yellow bananas and within 2 days, they ripen and turn brown. Especially in high humidity places like Mumbai and Singapore. And I hate throwing food. Thus, the need to find a fool-proof banana cake recipe.

I have tried many banana cake recipes over the years. Some are too dry, some spoil too soon due to the fruit and some just too blah. I also don't like recipes which use a ton of oil, butter or sugar as I feel too guilty eating the cake. This recipe came to me on one of the food groups I follow. I then tweaked it around and added a twist that takes it to another level. No more wasting bananas...yayy :D

Recipe

Ingredients

Maida (Plain flour) - 3/4 cup
Vegetable oil (Canola or Rice Bran or Sunflower) - 4 tbsp
Castor sugar (I use brown sugar or even jaggery ie. shakkar) - 1/3 cup
Over-ripe bananas - 2 medium
Egg - 1
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - A pinch
Dark Chocolate - 20 gm
Milk chocolate - 10 gm (or a tbsp of Nutella)
Walnuts - 5 (chopped)

Method:

1) Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celcius before you start baking. Line a small cake tin (loaf tin or square) with oil and then dust with a tbsp of flour mixed with half tsp of cocoa powder.
2) Sieve flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon powder together.

3) In a separate bowl, whisk the oil, sugar and egg together. Add the bananas and blend.

4) Add flour mix to this, 2 tbsp at a time and fold gently. Do NOT whisk or over-mix this, it must be done very gently. Repeat till flour is all used up.

5) Add 2-3 tbsp of milk if consistency is too thick. It should be pouring consistency. Add walnuts.
6) Melt the dark and milk chocolate in a double burner {Boil water in a pan and hold another pan on top of it (with bottom immersed in the water which contains the chocolate). Stir till chocolate melts}.

7) Add half the cake mixture to the chocolate and gently fold.
8) Pour a little bit of plain cake mix into the lined cake tin. Then top with half the chocolate mixture. Repeat with plain and chocolate till all the mix is used up.
9) Take a toothpick and gently swirl the top a couple of times for marble effect. Do not mix too much.
10) Bake for 40 minutes or till knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

11) Remove from the oven and unmould.

Soak: 
I have realised that soaking the sponge is one of the best tricks to distinguish your cake from the rest. It makes sure your cake is moist and not too dry in the mouth. For this cake I use a coffee soak, you can use whiskey or brandy too if you're making a chocolate cake.

1) Make 1/3 cup dark coffee (espresso or Vietnamese coffee or even instant coffee).
2) Add 3 tsp condensed milk to this. You can substitute with sugar if you don't have condensed milk.
3) Make holes in the cake with a toothpick. With a spoon, gently pour this coffee mix on top of the cake, slowly so that it soaks it up. Make sure you cover all parts of the cake.
4) Serve and enjoy!!