Playing It Up.

Those who dine with me on a regular basis know that for most of it, when it comes to dining, I’m pretty much a creature (diner?) of habit.

A lot of it, I suppose, comes from how incredibly fussy I am when it comes to my food- fish is out as there’s nothing I hate more than stale and/or overcooked fish slices and anything involving raw tomatoes that I can’t request not be included, thick yellow noodles and chinese herbs is a no-go. So when I do chance upon something good that clears my long list of criteria, I hold on to it.

Somehow, when it comes to cooking and baking, all that reservation goes right out the window. In fact, when it comes to my own kitchen, I’ll be pretty happy to be cooking and baking through a different menu every day.

Having said that though, happy as I am to experiment with different things in the kitchen, I do find myself returning to one dessert over and over again- the banana cake.

There’s quite something about banana cakes that are loved universally, at least in my world. And lucky for me, there’s always a bunch of bananas on the countertop and the occasional cup of yogurt sitting in the fridge.

With this particular banana cake, I played it up a little.

I roasted the bananas as the ones I had on hand weren’t quite bursting with ripeness. I find the roasting really brought the bananas to a whole new level as it seriously intensified their sweetness. And since it was a banana cake I was making after all, it only seemed natural that I played with other flavours I enjoy having bananas with so into the batter went a splash of rum and maple syrup (both of which I could have been a lot more generous with on hindsight).

Impossibly soft and moist (and perfect with a strong cup of coffee), this cake  certainly had fans in this household with most of it disappearing in the span of half a day. Even GT, who usually shys away from dessert, gave it his seal of approval and helped himself to a few more forkfuls.

So it looks like this cake has most definitely found its spot in my repertoire of banana cakes. And until the next bunch of bananas come along, this one will give me plenty to dream on.

Roasted Banana Bundt Cake [adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours]

Ingredients
3 cups of plain flour
2 tsp baking soda, sifted
Pinch of salt
200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
4 large ripe bananas
Splash of rum
Splash of maple syrup
1 cup plain yogurt

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Generously grease a 9-inch (12 cup capacity) bundt pan with butter and set aside.
2. Place the unpeeled bananas on a baking tray and roast them for about 10 minutes, until their skins are blackened. Remove the bananas from heat and turn the heat down to 170C. Peel and mash the bananas and set them aside.
3. In a bowl, whisk the plain flour, baking soda and salt together and set aside.
4. Cream the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until creamy. Add the sugar gradually, mixing well till pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs, beating well after the addition of each egg.
5. Mix in cooled mashed bananas, rum and maple syrup. Add half the flour mixture and mix until the mixture comes together. Stir in the yogurt before folding in the rest of the flour mixture.
6. Pour the batter out into the prepared Bundt pan. Smoothen the batter out and place in the oven to bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out with crumbs clinging. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before turning out from pan. Serves 12

Posted by thecoffeesnob on March 7, 2010

http://eatandbehappy.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/playing-it-up/