When I look back at my baking trail, I clearly see a pattern. First, I find a convincing recipe. Next, I give it a try. If I am happy with the whole process of baking it and the taste, I repeat it. I keep doing the same cake again and again, until at one point I get bored with it. Then I start looking for a new recipe and the cycle repeats itself! This has been true for my vanilla, chocolate and orange cakes. After I baked the orange cake through out the summer and then some more, my restlessness for a fresh new recipe came back. I kept searching each and every food blog that I follow for a recipe, but nothing clicked with me. And then, when I almost lost my hope, something caught my attention. Wait, a banana cake? I was skeptical. But one of the ingredients looked very promising! It's peanut butter!! I couldn't let it go. After a lot of mulling over the recipe, I made up my mind to give it a try. One fine afternoon, when the kid was in a good spirit to bake along with me, we baked it! Ta Da, it happened to be my next cake in the order :-)
Ingredients:
- ripe bananas - 2 or 3
- yogurt - 1/3 cup
- peanut butter - 1/3 cup
- oil - 3 tablespoons
- eggs - 2
- all purpose flour - 1 cup
- sugar - 1/2 cup
- baking soda - 3/4 teaspoon
- vanilla - 1 teaspoon
- chocolate chips (preferably dark) - 1/3 cup
Procedure:
- Pre-heat the oven at 180 degrees.
- Mash the bananas using a fork and spoon in the peanut butter and mix thoroughly so that there are no lumps. Add yogurt to it and give it a nice mix.
- Sieve the flour and baking soda together, so that they are well mixed and there are no lumps.
- In a mixing bowl beat the eggs and sugar until it becomes frothy. Add in oil and vanilla.
- Add flour to this and combine well. Tip in the mashed banana mix and combine together well.
- Stir in the chocolate chips and pour the mix into the greased-dusted cake tin. Sprinkle more choco chips on the top and bake it for 30 minutes or until the tooth pick comes out clean.
Little musings:
- Unlike my other earlier cakes, this cake tasted best the next day after baking, when it is no longer warm. I think by then, the flavor of banana n chocolate chips mingled and infused in the cake.
- Choco chips are the best thing that ever happened to this cake.
- Peanut butter is the ingredient which secretly done its part to balance the flavors of the cake.
- I think this cake is kind of opposite to the orange cake which is spongy delicate and feels like sunny. This banana cake is dense and something else, intense like winter evenings!
- I am so glad most of my girl friends liked this cake, found it very tasty and thought its quite an interesting combination. For all of you, here's the recipe! Give it a try and have fun, just like I did :-)