I buy a big bunch of bananas every week – some weeks everyone wants to use it for a breakfast smoothie and some weeks they just get riper and riper. What do you do with over ripe bananas – I make tofu puddings (great as a start to the day or end the night on a slightly sweet note) or this banana cake with over ripe bananas. This is a bit different in the sense that I have used a combination of stone ground wholemeal flour and buckwheat flour. Cocoa and LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond powder) added to the richness. If you don’t have LSA, use just linseed powder. Do try this recipe and let me know how you go.
INGREDIENTS
150g soft butter
1 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons dark brown cane sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 over ripe bananas, mashed
½ cup plain yoghurt, whisked
¾ cup wholemeal flour
¾ cup buckwheat flour
½ cup LSA
¼ cup good quality cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
METHOD
Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Butter a 23cm round spring form cake tin.
Cream the butter and sugar, and beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the vanilla.
Combine the flours and the baking powder plus soda. Sift and mix in with the dark brown cane sugar, LSA and cocoa.
Fold the flours into the egg mixture, a third at a time, alternating with the mashed bananas and the yoghurt.
Bake in the oven for 45 -50 minutes. You know that the cake is done when a knife pierced in comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to rest in pan for 15-20 minutes before turning it upside down onto serving platter.
You can jazz this up by icing with chocolate or keep it plain by dusting with icing sugar. You can serve with whipped mascarpone or crème fraiche or unsweetened natural Greek yoghurt.
Makes 10-12 wedges