Eight bananas mashed into creamed butter and sugar with flour, eggs and vanilla, and baked for an hour. A wet batter and a dense cake, and what to do with fruit nobody wants to eat.
A tin, not a baking sheet
The fourth instruction told you to pour the mixture into a baking sheet with a little flour, which is two errors in one sentence.
A baking sheet is the flat tray with no sides. Pour a cake batter onto it and it runs off. What the Spanish meant was a molde, a cake tin.
And with a little flour meant floured, which only works on a tin that has been greased first. Butter the inside, dust it with flour, tip out the excess. A batter this wet sticks to bare metal no matter what.
Eight bananas against two cups of flour
That is a very high proportion of fruit, and it decides everything about the result. The batter is looser than most cake batters, closer to a thick pouring consistency, and the cake it produces is dense, moist and heavy rather than light and open.
It also explains the hour at 170°C. That is a long bake for a cake this size and it is needed, because so much of what is in the tin is water from the banana that has to leave before the middle sets.
Check the centre with a skewer rather than trusting the clock, since the middle is always the last part to be done.
Ripe means black
Bananas for this want spotted or blackened skins and flesh soft enough to mash under a fork without effort. That is when the starch has turned to sugar and the fruit purées instead of shredding.
A firm yellow banana is a different ingredient: starchy, faintly astringent, and it will not disappear into the batter. It leaves pale streaks and a chalky taste.
This is the recipe to reach for when the fruit bowl has gone too far, which is exactly why it exists.
The order of the mixing
Butter and sugar creamed first, then the banana purée beaten in, then the flour a little at a time, and only after that the baking powder, the vanilla and the eggs.
Eggs going in after the flour is unusual and it is what the recipe says. Keep beating until the mixture is smooth: with this much liquid in it, it comes together easily.
More cakes
- Oatmeal banana bread — the loaf version.
- Carrot cake — another wet batter.
- Pumpkin cake — the same idea with squash.
- Banana mousse — no oven at all.
Banana Cake FAQ
Yes, and it is what makes this cake what it is. Against two cups of flour it gives a wet batter and a dense, moist, heavy cake rather than a light one. It is also why the hour in the oven is genuinely needed.
Very. Skins spotted or black. Underripe banana will not mash to a purée, stays starchy and leaves the cake tasting chalky. This recipe exists to use up the ones nobody wants to eat.
Yes, and the old instruction left that out. Flour alone has nothing to hold onto. Butter the tin first, then dust it with flour, or a batter this wet will weld itself to the metal.
No, and that is what the old instruction said. A baking sheet is flat, with no sides. This is a pourable batter and it needs a tin to hold it.
A skewer into the middle should come out clean or with a few dry crumbs. With this much banana in it, the centre is the last part to set, so check there rather than near the edge.
Yes. A wet cake turned out hot has not set enough to hold together. Give it time in the tin before running a knife round the edge.
The list says a cup or to taste, so the recipe is already inviting you to. Very ripe bananas bring a good deal of sweetness of their own.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 8 bananas (very ripe)
- 200 g butter
- 1 cup sugar (or to taste)
- 2 cups flour
- 5 eggs
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Notas
Instructions
- In a bowl, beat the sugar with the butter until you have a soft cream. Set it aside.
- Separately, mash the bananas until they are a purée. Once they are, add them to the bowl with the creamed butter and sugar and beat everything together.
- Then add the flour a little at a time while stirring. Once all the flour is worked in, add the baking powder, the vanilla extract and the eggs, and carry on beating until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
- Grease a cake tin and dust it with flour, pour in the mixture and bake for an hour at 170°C (340°F).
- Take it out of the oven, let it stand, then cut it into portions and serve.
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