Hi, foodie guys! How have you been doing?
I would like to share one of my easy baking recipes: Vietnamese banana cake ("bánh chuối"). Most of you call it "banana bread" but why I don't call like that? because I don't use yeast to make doughs like making bread. Even making this cake is a lot easier than making Vietnamese traditional breads😃.
Since I was a 7 year old kid, I have been in love with the fresh banana cakes from local street vendors in Vietnam like my other siblings. However, I could not eat a lot due to its contained dairy and sometimes the seller made them too sweet. So I decided to create my own recipe to make the taste more balanced and unique.
My banana cake is really much complimented by my guests when we have a house party. It is very easy for you to try at home because you only need very few simple ingredients to make it:
1. Ingredients:
| Fresh ripe bananas (medium size) | 4-5 units (approx. 450g) |
| Wheat Flour | 300gr |
| Dairy milk (no sugar added) | 150ml |
| Butter (at least 75% fat or more) | 140gr |
| Whole chicken eggs | 02 units = total at least 75grs |
| Undefined sugar (brown sugar) | 40-45gr |
| Raisin (dried grapes) | 100gr |
| Powdered salt | 10gr |
| Baking Soda | 5gr |
| Vanilla (liquid) | 5ml |
2. Prepare the mixture:
⁃FRESH BANANAS: Peel 4.5 bananas then crush them in a separate bowl. Only keep a half of a banana for decoration on the top of the cake. Slice this half banana into some thin slices. (see my photo)
⁃DRY INGREDIENT MIXTURE: Mix all wheat flour, salt, baking soda together well and leave them in a dry bowl.NO WATER ADDED.
⁃WET INGREDIENT MIXTURE:
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Melt the all butter with a separate bowl on the boiling water pot (see my photo) and leave it cool down a bit (not too long).
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Check the melted butter if it is still in good warm. Then put the melted butter, all milk, and all brown sugar into the bowl of crushed banana. Mix them well in 05 mins
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Then put all eggs into the melted butter bowl and mix it very well also. Now we have the wet-ingredient-mixture bowl.
⁃Use a small flour-sifter to sieve all DRY INGREDIENT MIXTURE into WET INGREDIENT MIXTURE bowl evenly.
⁃Stir to mix all of them very well again.
⁃Next, put all vanilla liquid and 90gr raisins into this ingredient mixture bowl and mix them again few mins.
3. Bake and Serve
⁃We will use 02 metal baking pans with size 16cm L x 8cm W x 6cm H.
⁃Turn on the oven to 170 C degrees and put the empty baking pans in for 10 mins.
⁃After 10 mins heated in oven, the baking pans are taken out. Leave the oven on.
⁃Put one small butter cube in each hot baking pan. Then use the pastry brush to wet the melted butter all inner sides of the pans evenly.
⁃Line a piece of baking paper at the bottom of each pan (see my photos). This will help you to take the cake out easily after baking.
⁃Pour the mixture inside two pans. Shake each pan lightly to break any air bubbles inside the mixture.
⁃Decorate each cake by thin slices of fresh bananas and the raisins.
⁃Bake two cakes in preheated ovens in 50 mins with the temperature 170 C degrees.
⁃After 50 mins, the cakes are beautifully brown. To check if the cake are fully baked or not, you can use a tooth-pick to stab deeply in the cakes. If it is still wet on the toothpick, then you need to bake around 8 minutes and check again by a tooth-pick.
⁃After fully baked, the banana cakes can be sliced and served as a snack with green tea or a dessert in a meal.
As usual, my friend 
I hope this recipe can be one of your “to-try” list. If you need any question or any help, please leave a comment here and I will do my best to explain as soon as possible.
Enjoy a great cooking time!
See you next time with another easy recipe from me!