Baker's Corner: Banana Walnut Cake

I recently bought a recipe book titled 'Mary Berry 100 Cakes and Bakes' at a local book fair. For the unversed, Mary Berry is one of the best-known and respected cookery writers and broadcasters in the UK. It was the variety of recipes and beautiful pictures in her book that caught my attention. Today's recipe has been inspired and adapted from the book. 

The original recipe that I had referred to was for an 'Apple and Cinnamon Cake'. Being a sucker for anything with apple and cinnamon in it, I knew I had to try it out. I did adhere to the recipe strictly the first time round and it turned out great The cake was rich, moist and it had the delightful flavour combination of apple and cinnamon. I loved it so much that I couldn't stop eating it. For those of you who are not a big fan of icing or cream on a cake, you will love this cake because it is all cake and no frills. I think it is perfect served with evening coffee/tea, at a casual get-together or at a picnic. 

I was so impressed with the recipe that on my subsequent baking venture, instead of experimenting with a different cake recipe from the book, I made a slight change to the same one. I substituted the apples with bananas to make a banana-walnut cake and the result was great as expected.

I hope you try this recipe and let me know the outcome.

Banana Walnut Cake

Preparation time: 20 min; Baking time: ~ 60 min;
Total time: 80 min

Serves: 6-8

Recipe Category: Dessert/Western
Recipe Level: Easy

Recipe Source: Adapted from Mary Berry 100 Cakes and Bakes

Cake tin required:

A deep, round 23cm (9 inch) cake tin

Ingredients:

225g self-raising flour

2 level tsp baking powder

225g unsalted butter, softened

225g light muscovado sugar

3 large eggs

100g chopped walnuts

100g sultanas

2-4 ripe bananas, sliced into roundels

1 tsp cinnamon powder

To finish:

Light muscovado sugar, for sprinkling

Extra chopped walnuts, for sprinkling

Icing sugar, for dusting

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 deg C/fan or 160 deg C/gas mark 4. Grease the cake tin and line the base with non-stick baking parchment paper. 
2. Measure all the ingredients. Sieve the flour and baking powder. Add the butter, sugar, eggs, chopped walnuts, sultanas and flour with baking powder into a large bowl and beat for about 2 min until thoroughly blended. 
3. Spoon half the mixture into the prepared tin then spread the sliced banana and cinnamon powder in an even layer on top. Spoon the remaining cake mixture on top, level the surface then sprinkle generously with light muscovado sugar and walnuts. 
4. Place on a universal baking tray on level 2 of the oven and bake for about 60 min or longer until the cake is well-risen, golden brown and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. I have a tendency to slightly over brown certain types of cakes (as my hubby likes it that way) but you can stop short of that. Check the cake at the 50 min mark to see how it is going. 
5. Leave to cool in the tin for a few mins, then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooking on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar to serve. 

Notes:

• Let all the ingredients come to room temperature before you start mixing them together
• If you don't have/find muscovado sugar, you can substitute it with regular sugar
• This cake is quite sweet so if you don't want it too sweet, cut down on the amount of muscovado sugar and omit the sprinkling of the muscovado sugar just before baking and icing sugar before serving
• Never open the door of the oven in the middle of the baking process as it can cause your cake to collapse
• Dust with the icing sugar once the cake has cooled sufficiently otherwise you will wonder where it disappeared 😄  
• If you want to substitute the bananas with apples in this recipe (as it was originally intended), peel, core and slice 400g of cooking apples and proceed as described in step 3 AN UPDATE: For the original apple version of this cake, refer here

Cheers,

Megha