Banana Cake 香蕉糕

Bananas are thought to have originated in Malaysia 4,000 years ago and spread throughout to Philippine, India, Africa and Americas. The four leading banana export countries worldwide are Ecuador (provides more than 33% of the global banana export), Costa Rica, Philippines and Colombia. Banana are available for harvest throughout the year.

Bananas are a favourite fruit for most of the children and adults. They are very convenient to eat, just peel of the yellow jacket and you could enjoy a creamy, rich and sweet flesh that are a good source of vitamins, minerals and fiber. 

In addition to being eaten raw, banana are a wonderful addition to a variety of recipes from fruit salad to baked foods. For a quick serving as a snack, I like to make banana and peanut butter sandwich for my boys or you may also substitute the peanut butter with some Nutella spread. They are so yummy.

In this post, I would like to share a delicious banana cake recipe that I adapted from Christine Ho's 'Easy Recipes'. This is a simple recipe that you only need a mixing bowl and a rubber spatula or a big spoon. There is no need to cream the butter with sugar with electric mixer and so on.

Ingredients:

• 3 or 4 Bananas (ripe)
• 60g Unsalted butter (melted)
• 150g Sugar, white or brown
• 1 Egg (whisked)
• 1tsp Vanilla extract
• 1/4 to 1/2 Cups milk (I used 1/2 cup)
• 1tsp Baking soda
• A pinch of salt
• 245g Plain flour or all purpose flour

Method:

• Preheat oven to 170C with rack in center of oven. Butter or spray with a non-stick vegetable spray, a 22cm x 12cm x 6cm loaf pan and line the bottoms of the pan with parchment paper for easy release. 

• Melt the butter. Set aside.

• In a bowl, sift or whisk together the plain flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

• In another big bowl, mash the bananas with a large fork. (don't over mash if you like to retain some texture)

• With a rubber spatula or a large spoon, combine the melted butter with the mashed bananas.

• Stir in the sugar (I prefer to use brown sugar as the banana cake will be darker in colour)

• Stir in whisked egg.

• Stir in vanilla extract.

• Add in 1/4 cup of milk (usually I will use up 1/2 cup of milk)

• Stir in the flour mixture, one third at a time. Just fold and incorporate all the ingredients thoroughly. Don't over mix or else you will end up with a dense banana cake. 

• Add in the rest of the milk to get the right consistency should you find the batter is too thick.

• Pour the mixture into the lined baking pan and bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the cake spring back when pressed lightly in center.

•  Place the cake on a wire rack to cool.