Chocolate Banana Cake for Shen Shen’s Birthday

I baked my first cake last weekend for Shen Shen’s birthday. And I am extremely proud to say that this is my first original creation. It wasn’t taken blindly from a single recipe. Although, obviously I had to adapt recipes for different parts of the cake from different recipes online.  

Why chocolate banana cake? Well, Shen Shen hates fruits (apparently banana doesn’t count) so that narrows down the choice by quite a bit. And she’s already an expert at cheesecakes, so let’s not even bother going there. Besides, I baked banana chocolate chip muffin a couple of weeks back and both Shen Shen and Tat Hui loved it, so it was a safe choice. But obviously turning the muffin into a big cake would be too easy. So instead of using chocolate chips, I decided to go with melted chocolate topping instead. Then while Googling a chocolate topping recipe, I also came across this scrumptious recipe for caramelized bananas, and thought it would be a cool idea to layer the cake with that too (yes, the cake was getting more complicated by the second).

So I finally settled on the idea of making a banana cake, layered with caramelized bananas, and topped with melted chocolate. Spent Saturday night baking the cakes, and put them together on Sunday before her birthday dinner. And below is the process of putting the birthday cake together:

The 3 banana cakes, baked the night before

Slice off the tops to get 3 flat layers

Pop the sliced bananas, brown sugar and cubed butter in the oven for 30 minutes

30 minutes later... golden caramelized bananas... the smell so was incredible, they almost didn't make it to the cake

Melt chocolate with condense milk

Spread the chocolate on the first layer

Arrange banana slices on top

Repeat process with second layer

Reminds you of a big mac doesn’t it?

Coat the side and top with more chocolate

For the decoration, pipe melted white chocolate before the dark chocolate sets

Streak it, and we’re done. Chocolate Banana Cake is ready!

And what did I do with all that leftover cake top, melted chocolate and bananas? Why, make another small version of the birthday cake.

Waste not, want not. Chocolate Banana Foldover anyone?

At least I got to try my hand at more decorating. And to be honest, the second cake I put together from the leftovers was actually nicer than the original birthday cake. The real deal turned out too chocolatey (duh, should have seen that coming, triple layers and all) while the small one was just right.

Happy Birthday again Shen Shen. Hope you liked eating the cake as much as I enjoyed baking it

And here is the recipe:

Banana cake (adapted from a banana muffin recipe)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

1. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. 
2. In another bowl, beat together the bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter
3. Stir banana mixture into the flour mixture until just moistened.
4. Bake in preheated oven at 350C for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean

Caramelized Bananas

• 6 bananas
• 2 tbsp cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 5 tbsp brown sugar

1. Slice bananas and place into a baking dish
2. Sprinkle butter pieces and brown sugar on top
3. Bake for 30 minutes or so until bubbling, golden and dry

Melted Chocolate Topping

• 250gm unsweetened cooking chocolate
• 250ml sweetened condensed milk
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 tbsp water
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, melt the chocolate with sweetened condensed mlik and salt.
2. Stir until it thickens for about 10 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, stir in water and vanilla.

Breakfast on the fly

Woke up extremely hungry, probably due to having gone to bed hungry in the first place. Powered on the laptop, Googled a simple recipe for scrambled eggs and whipped up a healthy breakfast in under 20 minutes:

Scrambled eggs

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp butter
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 pinch black pepper

1. Whisk together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper until it looks slightly fluffy.
2. Melt butter in a large pan over medium heat. Stir in eggs and continue stirring until just cooked and fluffy. Dish up

Here it is, my first ever scrambled eggs with coffee, toast, and a banana chocolate chip muffin (freshly baked the night before, will put up the recipe for that next time). And they say, eat breakast like a king…

No better way to start the day than a wholesome hearty breakfast

Ahh… that surely hit the spot. Should definitely do this more often on weekends.

Sambar

Made sambar for lunch today after having it in Seremban for Deepavali. Ingredients and steps below:

• 2 cups Australian dhall (soaked overnight)
• 6 cloves garlic, halved
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 carrot
• 1 potato
• 2 tomatoes
• 10 stalks french beans
• 1/2 small cabbage
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 green chili, sliced
• 1 tbsp curry powder

Boil dhall with garlic and salt until dhall is soft

Add carrots and potatoes, continue boiling until soft

Throw in tomatoes and french beans

Add cabbage and curry powder

Saute mixed spices, curry leaves, onions and chili until fragrant. Add to pot and continue boiling

Sambar is ready. Add more salt to taste if necessary

And here it is, sambar with rice and mutton (which I did not cook so no recipe for that one).

Lunch is served

A very satisfying lunch, but still not exactly what I was looking for. I would have preferred the sambar to be much thicker like what I had for Deepavali, more like the thick dalcha consistency that you get when eating roti canai in mamak stores. Either I need more potatoes or more dhall, or I just need to boil the dhall/potatoes for longer until they’ve mushed up before I throw in the other vegetables. Will leave that for the next experiment.

Rock Buns

With an oven at my disposal back home, I couldn’t resist indulging in yet more baking. Baked some rock buns with a simple recipe I adapted off the internet:

Ingredients:

• 400gm Self Raising Flour
• 150gm butter
• 250gm raisins (or any other dried fruit)
• 200gm castor sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup or 60ml milk

The basic ingredients

Steps as below:

Fold in butter and flour

Stir in castor sugar and raisins

Add eggs and stir in

Stir in milk until it reaches a soggy consistency as above

Spoon the mixture into heaps on baking tray. Makes 2 trays

Preheat oven to 160C, and bake for 25-30 minutes.

 

Up close and personal… can almost smell it again...

 

Irresistably good. But we still found it too buttery even after reducing the amount of butter from the original recipe. Turned out more of a cookie crumbly consistency rather than a hard rock bun we were aiming for. So this post should probably be renamed to raisin cookies rather than rock bun. Perhaps will try this recipe again with only 100gm butter the next time round.

Banana Bread

My dad and I decided to whip up our banana bread, for old time’s sake. We used to bake banana bread way back during my high school days, almost 10 years ago. Took us two rounds of baking to get the proportions correct and perfect the recipe again. Here’s how to do it:

1. Mix 1 cup warm water and 1 packet yeast in a mixing bowl.

2. Add the below to the mix:

• 3 bananas, mashed
• 1 cup flour, sifted
• 1/3 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 egg

3. Leave to rise for 3 hours. Then add the below:

• 4 bananas, mashed
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 cups flour, sifted

4. Pour the mixture out onto a kneading board. Knead ~45 minutes. Continuously add more sifted flour to the dough until it can be picked up from the board with ease. Then leave to rise for 20 minutes.

5. Take another 6-7 bananas, split each into 3 strips lengthwise.

6. Divide the dough into 16 even portions. Then shape each portion as below:

Flatten dough out and arrange 2 strips of banana on it

Fold the sides over to envelope the bananas

Voila! Shaped dough

Arrange on a baking tray, and place a small piece of banana in the centre

 

7. Leave to rise for another 20 minutes. Apart from the stuffed buns, we also made some plain ones with walnuts and raisins

Dad got cheeky with this one...

8. Preheat oven to 200C. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

And here it is, fresh out of the oven. The bananas have this golden caramelized glow to it. The smell of freshly baked banana bread was incredible as well

Hot out of the oven

Bursting with bananas

It sure is nostalgic to bake (and eat) them all over again. I brought some up to Penang for my friends to try. Dhinesh and Satchi thought it was store bought, so I guess it must have looked pretty professional I have to try this again sometime in Penang.