Hi everyone! 👋
Winter in Sydney is a bit cold especially at night. Top it up with the pandemic going on and we definitely prefer to stay indoors at home. I think if things were “normal” we’d be out for a dessert run on the other side of Sydney if possible.
As some may know, we’ve been working from home for many months now. I’ve watched nearly every drama that I wanted to watch, caught up with all the latest episodes and have lost interest in playing PC games. My nights have been super boring! So, not wanting to be defeated by the depressing feeling of being bored on this cold, rainy, winter night, I started looking up recipes and decided to make something.
I had two bananas that’s gone really, really ripe and didn’t want to throw it out so I decided to make a banana cake. I know that hubby enjoys the occasional banana bread but I prefer a cake so cake it is.
I followed a recipe that looked healthier than other recipes found online. This one substitutes butter for coconut oil, honey instead of sugar and option to use milk or water for those lactose intolerant. There are also tips at the end of the recipe for more substitutions for vegans and more.
I also chose this recipe as I happened to have all the ingredients handy at home. Very fortunate indeed otherwise I’d be having another bored night in.
This recipe is also good as you don’t need an electric mixer and just a whisk which means less washing and handling for lazy me 😅
Ok! So oven was on preheat at 200 degrees Celsius while I start mixing the batter.
Step 1: mix coconut oil and honey
Step 2: add mashed banana, eggs and milk and mix.
Step3: add in baking powder, bicarb soda, salt and vanilla essence. I skipped the cinnamon as I’m not a fan of cinnamon in things other than on my doughnut 🤭
Step 4: so here’s also another change I did. I used cake flour instead of whole wheat flour. So it’s 3/4 cup cake flour and 1 cup plain flour here.
Step 5: mix it in with a spoon or spatula. I made sure the flour was mixed in well and some lumps are ok but I tried breaking it up as much as possible. In this step, if you like having nuts or dried fruits added in, do so and mix it in. I didn’t add any extras as I had none at home.
Step 6: scoop into a baking tin. Make sure you line the tin with baking paper otherwise the cake will stick on the tin later.
Step 7: pop the tin filled with cake mixture into the oven and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 30-35 minutes. Mine only needed 30 minutes.
The cake started rising in no time and the top began to crack. I got worried because I wasn’t sure how high it was going to rise and how much more it’ll crack at this point.
The house smelt lovely with this bake. The cake had a nice rise despite the crack and did not deflate during and after cooling.
Cutting in half, I was super satisfied with how it looked on the inside. Hubby and I had a slice each and gave the nod of approval. It was not oily and not super sweet. The honey made things just right. The aroma of the banana was beautiful. I wrapped up the other half for my parents as they also love a good banana cake and I’ll let them be the judge.
Please note that I also skipped making the cake icing as we aren’t usually the ones to eat the cream or icing on the cake. Most the time we scoop it off.. just not into super sweet cakes. Don’t judge 😆.