banana chocolate swirl cake

First, check your pantry that you have all the ingredients. No bananas; get some at lunchtime.

Get home, realise you forgot bananas. That’s okay – get some tomorrow when you’re running errands.

Got bananas – start cooking!

 

Preheat oven, prep tin. Ugh, recipe specifies a loaf tin over a foot long (32.5 cms, to be precise – or 13 inches, if I’m doing my conversion correctly). Who has a tin that long? Phone mum. Mum agrees: who has a tin that long? She says the cake would probably break in the middle as you turn it out, anyway. Decide to use big bundt tin instead.

 

Whizz bananas in food processor for lovely smooth mash. Try three bananas - get way more than recipe requires – they are big bananas! Measure out what is required, add a bit more, then eat the rest. Yum.

 

Check recipe – melt chocolate. Set up double boiler on stovetop. Find no cooking chocolate in pantry – only dark Lindt with the mousse-like filling. Turn off pre-heating oven and hotplate, grab wallet and car keys and head to supermarket; luckily it’s only a 15 minute round trip. 

 

On trip to supermarket wonder if you really did turn off the oven and hotplate. Panic.

 

Grab two blocks of cooking chocolate, just in case. See girl who served you this morning when you bought the bananas. She remembers you. Yup, back again.

 

Head home, still thinking about oven and hotplate. Remind yourself it’s only a 15 minute round trip.

 

Get a red light.

 

Get another red light.

 

Get home; you did turn off oven and hotplate. Phew.

 

Take deep breath, turn everything back on, and start baking again. Ten minutes for beating butter and sugar? Ten minutes? Beat for about three; what would seven more achieve?

 

Yes, it was one of those days.

 

Gorgeous banana-coloured cloth from Frangipani Fabrics.

 

Banana chocolate swirl cake

Adapted from a Donna Hay recipe.

• Preheat your oven to 180 and prep a bundt tin.
• First, mash your bananas using a fork or use your food processor for a super smooth puree. You need a generous 1 ½ cup of banana; how many bananas you need depends on their size. Set aside.
• Next, melt 100 gms dark chocolate and set aside.
• Beat 125 gms soft butter with 1 cup light brown sugar for a few minutes, until pale and creamy.
• Add 2 eggs, then ¼ cup golden syrup, then the banana.
• Now sift in 1 ½ cups plain flour, 1 tspn baking powder, ½ tspn bicarb soda and 1 scant tspn mixed spice.
• Take another bowl and place half the cake batter into this, then stir thru this second bowl the melted chocolate until well combined.
• Take your cake tin and spoon alternating blobs of the two cake batters. Take a knife and do some swirls to lightly combine the batters.
• Bake cake for 45 minutes or until done. Once baked, cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Allow to cool before cutting.