Bananas are going overripe quicker now that the year is heating up. I do keep them in another room, that tends cooler than the kitchen, but it’s inevitable so I might have to start keeping them in the fridge. As a result, I tend to buy only 3 or 4 at a time since I’m really the only one who eats them; Mark may have the odd one but there will be weeks between each one. Unfortunately, I forgot to mention this to him when he did the shopping last week, so he came back with a hand of about 9. With the best will in the world I can’t eat that many and today they were looking (and smelling) very, very ripe. I thought I’d be making banana bread again. Then I thought, I wonder if there’s something else I could make? I’d take a look on line.
I found a recipe for a coffee cake, in both senses of the word. That is, a cake to eat with a cup of coffee and one with coffee flavouring-in this case a coffee buttercream. It was an intriguing combination and, with a little substitution, I had everything I needed.
The Recipe (for cake):
| ½ cup/125 g /4 oz soft margarine, or butter, softened* |
| 1 cup/250 g/8 oz granulated sugar** |
| 2 large eggs, at room temperature |
| 1 tsp/5 ml vanilla extract/essence |
| 2 cups/250 g/8 oz all-purpose (plain) flour |
| 2 tsp/ 10 ml baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) |
| ½ tsp salt |
| 1½ cups mashed banana (about 3 ripe bananas) |
| 1 cup/ 250 ml/ 8 fl oz greek yogurt or sour cream*** |
* I used soft margarine
**caster sugar would work better if not in North America
***I used 0% greek yoghurt
Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C/Gas 4. Grease a suitable baking dish and set aside.
Measure out all of the ingredients, as follows. Note that I used the cup measures for this cake. When measuring flours in cups, it’s important not to scoop up the flour with the cup, since this will lead to a packed cup and be too much flour. Instead, fill the cup measure using a spoon and level off.
Measure the flour, baking soda and salt and sift into a bowl, set aside.
Measure 1 cup of yoghurt or sour cream and set aside.
Place the bananas into a bowl and mash well with a fork. Set aside.
Measure the margarine or butter, and sugar into a large bowl.
Cream the margarine/butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix well.
Start to add the flour mixture, yoghurt/cream and bananas in aliquots one after the other, beating well between each addition. The result with be a batter with a nice dropping consistency; there will be some small lumps of banana, that’s fine. Transfer to the greased dish and level the top.
Bake. The recipe, with the 9 x 13 inch tin, suggests 35-40 minutes. Mine took slightly longer, maybe 45 minutes. The cake is done when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, in the dish, on a wire rack.
The recipe suggested a coffee-flavoured buttercream to frost the cake. It seemed an unusual combination but I was willing to give it a try.
The Buttercream:
| ⅓ cup/85 g/2.5 oz butter, softened |
| 2½ cups/390 g/12.5 oz icing sugar (powdered sugar/confectioner’s sugar) |
| 1 tsp (5 ml) espresso powder, dissolved in 1 tbsp (15 ml) hot water, and cooled* |
| 1 tbsp (15 ml) milk |
* the recipe suggests 2 tsp instant coffee powder, dissolved in milk. if using instant coffee, not espresso, use a total of 2 tbsp milk in this mixture.
I realised that I’d forgotten to buy some more icing sugar, and I wasn’t going to have enough for this topping. What to do? Well, I thought I’d try to make some, using my blender. I added some granulated sugar and tried to grind to a fine powder. It did it, too, but not as fine as the commercial stuff, so my icing ended up being slightly gritty.
Add the butter (and I do recommend butter here, not margarine) to the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until fluffy.
Make up the espresso with 1 tbsp of hot water, and leave to cool. Note that strong coffee lovers might want to increase the coffee to 2 tsp espresso powder.
When the butter is fluffy start to add the icing sugar. If it becomes too dry, add in the espresso solution. Add 1 tbsp milk (additional may be added if the mix remains too stiff). beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl, until light and fluffy.
When the cake is cool, layer the buttercream over to top. Slice and serve.
The cake has a light, spongy texture, actually quite ‘muffin-y’, I think. I expect that the mixture could easily be baked in muffin cases to make banana muffins (with a reduced baking time). Some people have baked it in a swiss roll tin, and then rolled it up with the coffee buttercream as a filling, which sound like fun. It has a light, banana flavour, not too strong, and a hint of spice might make a good addition. The coffee buttercream went with it very well, I thought rather surprisingly, although I think I would go a little stronger with the coffee flavouring on another occasion. All-in-all, it was a nice alternative to the problem of what to do with overripe bananas. I shall have to freeze some of it, though because its awfully big for two!
The Pudding Queen 