Banana Cake

I got this recipe from Exclusively Food.



This recipe makes a moist, dense banana cake with a smooth cream cheese icing. The cake doesn't rise much so it has a nice flat top for presentation. We served the cake at room temperature and topped each slice with a little passionfruit pulp.

You will need about 2-3 large bananas for this recipe.

125g butter, softened (if using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon salt with the flour)
330g (1 1/2 cups) sugar
280g (1 very slightly rounded cup) very ripe, mashed banana
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (1 teaspoon natural vanilla essence)
2 large eggs (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
100ml (1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon) buttermilk
225g (1 1/2 cups) self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius fan-forced. If you don't have a fan-forced oven, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a 22cm diameter springform pan.

Place butter, sugar, banana, vanilla and eggs in a food processor.





Process for about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of processor. Add buttermilk and pulse to combine.

Sift flour, salt (if using) and bicarbonate of soda together into a large bowl. Add flour mixture to food processor and process until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared tin.



Bake for about 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer or knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.



Leave cake to cool on a wire rack.

Spread cooled cake with cream cheese icing. Store cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Cream Cheese Icing
90g cream cheese, softened
45g butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

Beat cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Add sifted icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add lemon juice and beat to combine. Spread icing over top and sides of cooled cake.

NOTES FROM SCATTERMISH:

Cake:
Make sure you do the first part through a food processor like the recipe says. I was lazy and did it all with a beater, but it means the butter and banana don't mash up properly. So my cake was a little bit thick and dense as a result.
Also i say there's never really a problem with using extra banana. I used to prescribed amount, but coulda done with a bit more banana flavour... I do love bananas, but.
I never really believe in leaving a cake to sit before eating it. It tastes the best straight out of the oven. Eat some of it then, without any icing, and it's almost caramely... oh yeah!

Icing:
The icing originally had 1 2/3 cups of icing sugar, but this woulda made it waaayyy too sweet. I'm pretty much always wary of the amount of icing sugar they tell you to put it, as I'm not really a fan of sweet icing, but more of a fan of the flavour of whatever you're making the icing out of. I ended up changing the amount of icing sugar to 1 cup only, and the icing sugar was bloody nice. Just do it to taste.
Also be careful with how much lemon juice you put in. I pretty much just squeezed half a lemon, which made the icing much too runny, and it just slid off the cake.
Also get like 3 passionfruits and drible them over the top of the icing (kinda like the top picture), it's a nice edition.


Hmmm....
Zoe you do like bananas right? you better... or else!