I’ve already described how I used up some soft bananas from a fruit box we were sent at work in this banoffee pie with a chocolate cornflake base. There were actually more bananas left over and I’ve always wanted to make banana bread but never got round to it (the fact that I don’t like banana also puts me off!). As I have mentioned before, once a month I spend a day in the office of a design agency that we work with to produce a particular internal project and it’s usually a very long day.
As I spend so much time with them, and a couple of them end up having to work late due to this project, I’ve gotten into the habit of taking cake. It seemed a good idea because I have a small team at work and people don’t want to eat cake all the time, so this way I had a new audience – one who wasn’t bored of cake. They were very appreciative so I’ve now made cake every time I’ve been to their office. This time was great fun – not long after I had arrived, I overheard a conversation between two of the team that they were hungry and didn’t have any food in the office. I turned around and innocently remarked “well I did bring cake” – the look on their faces was priceless!
I knew there would be enough hungry people in the office to eat the cake that I could make banana bread and it didn’t matter if I didn’t like it. As it was, it tasted really good – I didn’t want a whole slice as the banana flavour was quite strong but it was lovely and moist and the addition of chocolate was lovely. I took inspiration from this recipe but did make it differently.
Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread – an original recipe by Caroline Makes
Makes one 1-litre loaf cake
You need:
¾ cup caster sugar
2 ripe bananas
½ cup crème fraiche
2 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour
4 tbsp cocoa powder
Preheat oven to 180C.
Mash the bananas and cream with the sugar, then add the crème fraiche and eggs. Fold in the flour.
Separate the mixture into two bowls and add the cocoa powder to one bowl.
Grease a loaf tin and spoon in the chocolate banana cake mixture, then spoon the plain mixture on top. Use the spoon to swirl the two around – take a spoonful of the bottom layer and bring it up to the top, twisting as you do so. Repeat this along the length of the tin.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for 50-60 minutes, testing with a skewer to see if it is cooked through. Allow to cool in the tin and then turn out.
This cake slices really well and because there is no frosting, it’s something you can wrap up and take on a picnic or in your lunchbox for work. It was really moist and the chocolate flavour went perfectly with the banana and considering that I don’t even like banana, I would say this was a success!
As I used up old bananas I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted this month by Foodie Quine on behalf of Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary.
