Jake’s Chocolate Banana Cake
When I arrived at The Ginger Monkey (sorry, I can’t go on about it enough…), I was promised some of Jake’s awesome chocolate and banana cake. ‘Sweet,’ I thought, I hadn’t eaten much that day, was feeling pretty knackered after a 2a.m. wake up call to catch my flight to Krakow, ‘some cake would go down a storm.’ So, we dive into the fridge, and find… A plate of cake crumbs and sticky fingerprints. Who eats four slice of cake then puts the plate back in the fridge. WHO!? We weren’t overly impressed. That said, chilling out in the hammock with a cold beer and a view that I could never tire of more than made up for it.
So out of boredom / wishful thinking that I was back at the Monkey, I got Jake to send me the recipe so I could whip it up. Like my banana bread, this cake is a great way of using up those slightly-past-their-best bananas that forever seem to be taking up kitchen counter space. It’s really moist and fudgy – or at least mine was, I didn’t cook it for long enough… – and it goes without saying, really really good.
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
2 cups / 400g granulated sugar (caster is fine too)
1 3/4 cups / 245g all-purpose flour
3/4 cup / 75g cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Sift and stir together all of the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl, and set aside.
1 heaped cup mashed up ripe banana (at least two medium ripe ones, I used four small)
1 cup / 240 ml warm water
1/2 cup / 120 ml milk
1/2 cup / 120ml vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Thoroughly beat your wet ingredients together, then slowly stir them into the flour mixture to ensure you don’t get any lumps. Beat for another couple of minutes until everything is really well mixed up.
Pour into a greased and lined 9×13 inch (23x33cm) and bake on a middle shelf for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave it to cool in the tin for 10 or so minutes before turning the cake out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Frosting time!
If you’re icing top and sides of the cake, you may want to double this recipe up as it’s made to go with a slightly smaller cake. The one you’ve just made by the way is a bit of a monster – according to the ‘Joy of Baking’ website, it can serve up to 16 people. Or 4 very greedy ones.
3oz / 90g plain or dark chocolate, melted
1/2 cup / 113g soft unsalted butter
1 cup / 120g icing sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
Melt the chocolate either in a double boiler or in the microwave. A very handy tip I learned off of either The Great British Bake Off or Masterchef Australia, both new addictions, is that a dash of honey can save seized-up chocolate i.e. the stage where you’ve been melting it for too long and it starts to dry out and go almost crumbly.
While the chocolate is cooling slightly, cream together the butter and icing sugar until really light and fluffy, stir in the vanilla extract, followed by the chocolate. For me the icing was a little too sweet, so I chucked in a couple tablespoons of Green&Black’s cocoa powder. Perfect.
Slather over the top (and sides) of the cake and enjoy. To me it looks like the sort of cake Roald Dahl had in mind when he was writing ‘Matilda’. Yum.
