First of all i would like to apologize to my Students who asked me more than 2 months ago for this recipe. I cooked for them a version of this banana cake and I couldn't find time to shoot and upload the recipe. I am sorry guys.
Coming back to this cake, this cake is an inspiration from one of the dishes I learnt from my Sister in Law. A much liked fritter in our family which is made when bananas are almost rotten and can't be consumed raw. Their skin is black and the flesh is brown and mushy. That is the perfect time to make that dish. I shall upload that recipe some time too.
For this cake I took not so brown bananas but they need to be ripe enough to be soft and mushy. I like to add my India spices to this cake along with Vanilla so that this cake almost tastes like it came from my in Laws kitchen. I make me yearn more to run to Banaras and meet all of them and cook for all of them and while this cake baked in oven, my mind starts wandering in my house in Banaras where I find myself in the kitchen, in the Veranda, on the streets and ghats of Banaras with my beloved family. The taste is like my smiles and laughters and giggles of my family all in one bite. Okay enough of the walk down the memory lane.. Let go straight to the recipe because as I write, my mouth is already salivating and I am almost drifting towards daydreaming of how life could be when I would live in Banaras.
Vegan Banana Cake
Ingredients :
Almost over ripe Bananas : 4
Plain Flour : 100 gms
Whole Wheat Flour : 80 gms
Baking Powder : 1 tsp
Baking Soda : 1/4 tsp
Salt : a pinch
Raw Sugar : 90 grams
Vanilla Essence : 1 tsp
Cardamom Powder : 1 tsp
Black Pepper : 1/4 tsp
Vegan Butter : 70 gms
Chopped Walnuts : 4 tbsp
Raisins : 4 tbsp
Dry Coconut shavings : 4 tbsp
Method :
Firstly put the over to preheat at 180 degrees. Now mash the bananas into fine pulp. You will notice that when you start mashing the bananas, they will slowly start turning into paste. Its okay if you have little pea sized bits. So make sure that they bananas you are using are so ripe that they can be mashed easily into pulpy paste. Once its done, add your vegan butter, vanilla essence, cardamom powder and sugar and using a whisk, whisk it all together until sugar is almost dissolved and the mixture is homogeneous. You can also use coconut butter or oil and even any other flavorless oil in place of butter. I find butter given it a nice golden brown crust and make this cake more moist.
Now sift in all your dry ingredients except nut and raisin and fold them gently. Avoid over mixing the batter. The batter should be a little thicker than usual cake batter but thats okay. Just add a little water if you think the batter is more like dough. Fold in the nuts and raisin and transfer to greased loaf tin. You can bake these individually in muffin pan or bake these in a round tin.
Bake for 20-30 minutes and serve. If your serve this cake hot it just tastes like banana fritter. There is another way of serving this cake. Refrigerate this cake overnight and then at time of serving slice it, apply butter on both side and grill it a little. Then a spread little jam over and serve. The Black pepper will give you a kick and the jam in the cake will cut through the richness and it will taste like heaven. Trust me... Food heaven does have this cake on menu...
