Here’s a lovely cake that combines two great flavours. It’s firm and moist with a terrific texture, made even better by the scrumptious crumbly topping and smooth, rich filling.
Serves: 12
Level: Fairly easy
Time: Around 2 hours in total, including baking, plus cooling and chilling time
Equipment: Two 20cm/8” round, loose-bottomed, reasonably deep cake tins
Crumble topping “approximate” ingredients
- 40g/1.25oz Light brown sugar
- 40g/1.25oz Self-raising flour
- 30g/1oz chopped nuts*
- 30g/1oz oats
- 20g/0.75oz – 30g/1oz butter
*I don’t always specify, or use, specific nuts. One reason is economy. For this recipe, were I asked to be specific, I’d use walnuts, but it’s your choice.
Cake ingredients
- 2 medium eggs
- 3 large ripe bananas, mashed
- 150ml/5.5fl oz sunflower oil
- 100ml/3.5fl oz milk
- 250g/9oz self-raising flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 250g/9oz golden caster sugar
- pinch of salt
- 125g/4.5oz nuts, roughly chopped
- 100g/3.5oz chocolate chips
- 2 egg whites
Buttercream “approximate” ingredients
- 100g/3.5oz – 125g/4.5oz butter, softened
- 50g/1.75oz – 100g/3.5oz full fat cream cheese (optional)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (also optional)
- 250g/9oz – 350g/12oz icing sugar
- Around 25g/1oz cocoa powder dissolved in hot water. (depends how dark you want it.)
Method
1. Heat the oven to 180C /fan 160C /350F /gas 4. Butter and line the base of two 20cm (8 inch) loose-bottomed cake tins, using baking parchment.
2. For the crumble topping, stir together the sugar, flour, chopped nuts and oats then add the butter, cut into small pieces & rub together to get sticky crumbs. Set aside.
3. Lightly beat the two whole eggs with a fork, then mix with the mashed banana, oil and milk until all the wet ingredients are well combined.
4. Sift the flour, cinnamon and baking powder into a separate large bowl then add the sugar, salt, nuts and chocolate chips and stir to mix.
5. In another (very clean) bowl, whisk the egg whites until just stiff. Set aside.
6. Tip the oily banana mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and quickly stir in until you have a smooth, lump-free mix.
7. Using a large metal spoon or spatula, gently fold in the egg whites.
8. Carefully pour the mixture equally into the prepared tins. Scatter the crumble topping over one cake and bake them both for about 50 – 60 minutes. Check them with 15 mins to go. If the surface is browning too much, cover with foil.
9. Leave the finished cakes in their tins for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
10. To make the buttercream filling mixture, beat the butter until light and creamy. (I like to beat in some cream cheese, but you could use more butter instead if you prefer. Another optional extra would be a tsp of vanilla extract)
11. Sift in the icing sugar with 1 – 2 tsp hot water. (Add just one at first, in case it makes the mixture too runny.)
12. If you want to have two types of buttercream you need to separate the mixture into two bowls and add cocoa powder to one. Pipe alternate blobs of chocolate buttercream and plain buttercream then join the two cakes. It would then be a good idea to put the cake in the fridge for a while to firm up.
I hope you enjoy making and eating this cake. I’d love to hear from you if you do. Please let me know, via the contact page, what you think and how you got on. If you’d like to see more luscious chocolate cake recipes go to: https://retiredblokeonfoodnstuff.com/4-chocolate-cakes-2/
Retired Bloke on Food n stuff 