Chocolate Banana Swirl Cake

My brother has always loved a good banana cake.

Each year, on his birthday, Mom would bake him a banana cake (or buy.  I really don’t remember.  Because it was banana.).  I, as his supportive big sister, would question his sanity.

Every.  Single.  Time.

Depending on how things went, there may or may not have been a throw down battle on the eve of a birthday or two as one or the other of us attempted to establish dominance in the Great Cake War.

I’d like to say I won and turned him to the dark side (ha, ha!), a chocolate cake convert, forever eschewing banana cake in favor of rich cocoa flavor.  But the truth is, my brother stands firm in his preferences.   The cake debate carries on even today.

Here’s the thing.

I don’t understand banana cake.

Bananas are fruit.  They can be baked into bread.  That’s tasty.  In fact, banana bread will turn up in this blog one of these days, probably as soon as we have enough bananas stocked up in the freezer.

But baked into a cake?

That makes it a fruit cake and I’m pretty darn sure we all have vicious, horrible memories of the dreaded holiday fruit cake, delivered to the front door and presented as a gift by some well-meaning, but clearly tasteless (as in lacking a sense of…), relative.

Or maybe that’s just me.  In my opinion, fruit cakes make good door stops.  And bricks.  They are not to be eaten.  Yuck.

So, I was presented with a dilemma when the recipe immediately following Chocolate French Toast in my Fine Cooking magazine was Chocolate Banana Swirl Cake.

I’d made a commitment to myself and to the few very nice people who read this blog to post all 75 recipes from the magazine.

Did I skip it and hope no one counts up the recipes when the posts reach the end of this little experiment?

Or did I bake it anyway, content to know that Sweets and the boys would eat it, because they’ll eat all things of tasty goodness?

The things we do for the ones we love.

And because we don’t want to quit.

Or cheat.

(Not that I haven’t quit stuff before.  Sometimes we’re better off quitting.  But I don’t cheat.  Even at cards.)

I found I could not, in good conscience, skip a recipe just because I didn’t like one of the ingredients.  Particularly since it was a core ingredient.

So I baked it.

It’s actually pretty good.

Particularly the chocolate part.

If you also like banana cake, you’ll like the banana part too.

Quick tip: Set the butter on the counter several hours before baking this cake to allow it to soften.  If you freeze your overripe bananas like we do, also set those out far enough ahead to let them fully defrost.

Chocolate Banana Swirl Cake

For the pan

• 2 TBSP granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup medium-finely chopped walnuts
• Softened unsalted butter

(I’ll be honest.  I skipped this part and just sprayed the bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray.  In earlier posts, I’ve mentioned Hockey Boy isn’t a fan of nuts, so I’m always going to skip the nuts if they’re not a core ingredient.  Once the cake cooled, I drizzled a simple glaze over the top, just to add a bit of sweet.  It worked for us.  If you include this step, please come back and let me know how it tastes.)

For the cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, completely softened at room temperature
• 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 3 very ripe medium bananas, peeled (Really?  Are there really people who would leave the peel on?)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 6 TBSP buttermilk
• 4 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled

1. Prepare the pan (if you’re using the nuts): Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F.  In a small bowl, mix the sugar with the chopped walnuts.  Generously butter a large bundt pan and coat with the nuts and the sugar, pressing the nuts with your fingers to help them stick.  The pan sides will be coated and some of the nuts will fall to the bottom, which is fine.

2. Mix the batter: In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until well blended.  With an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar, bananas, and vanilla until well blended and the bananas are almost smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating until just incorporated.  (The recipe does not say to cream the butter and sugar first.  However, the butter did not become smooth and went into the pan in small lumps after I gave up due to concerns about over mixing the batter.  Lumpy butter did not appear to impact taste or the baking process but it did leave me feeling like I’d missed a vital step in the preparation.  Creaming the butter and sugar first would be the missing link.  So, I suggest adding that step.)

3. Remove the bowl from the mixer.  With a rubber spatula, alternately add half the flour mixture, all the buttermilk, and then the rest of the flour mixture, stirring until each addition is just blended.  Spoon half the batter into a medium bowl and gently stir in the melted chocolate until just combined.

4. With a large spoon, alternately add a spoonful of each batter to the prepared pan, working around the pan until all the batter is used.  Gently run a knife or the tip of a rubber spatula through the batter, once clockwise and once counter-clockwise, to slightly swirl the batters.  Gently tap the pan on the counter to settle the ingredients.

Alternating the batters will give you this marbled look and, ultimately, the “swirl” called out in the recipe title

5. Bake until a pick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs sticking to it, about 40 minutes.  Let the cake cool in a wire rack for 15 minutes.  Gently tap the sides of the pan on the counter to loosen the cake.  Invert the pan onto a rack, lift off the pan, and let the cake cool completely.  (Be sure to follow the time guidelines for cooling and unmolding the cake.  If you wait too long, the cake will stick to the pan.  If you take it out too early, it might break apart.)

Be sure to follow the instructions regarding cooling time. You don’t want to lose a crumb.

If you skip the nuts and go the glaze route: mix about 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar with 2-3 TBSP light corn syrup. Add just enough water to make it runny enough to drizzle.

This really is very good. The combination of chocolate and banana makes for tasty goodness. But I still prefer a pure chocolate cake. : )

Please come back again to see what else comes out of the oven.

Until then, may your days be filled with tasty goodness!

Source: www.finecooking.com