STILL NEW YORK-HUNGRY

2. Banana Walnut PAN-cake (Hi-Carb)

No, this is not a recipe for banana pancakes, this is a recipe for banana cake that is baked in a pan.

It came about by two things coming together:

– the title-giving bananas were so ripe they were short of running away on their own, and begged to be processed
– I didn't know if I should give away the baking book I found the recipe in, or not. (Now I know: NO! )

I was tending toward "giving away" because I was especially doubtful about flipping the cake. It's already difficult to flip a normal pancake, but a real cake of the caliber that usually needs a veritable baking tin!? The description for the flipping read... complicated, too. In reality, it turned out to be fairly easy, though. So last obstacle cleared.

Also this recipe only needs ingredients you likely have at home, anyway. I used up quite a bit stuff bogging my sparse space in kitchen cabinetry / fridge.

And baking it in the pan on the stove has advantages, too. Since you put the lid on the pan, the heat stays in there as compared to you first having to preheat the oven, and it taking more energy for a longer time to sustain the temperature.

In the pan, the baking the cake took shorter – about 20 minutes compared to baking the cake in the oven – and it takes a shorter time to cool down as the temperature in the pan is tendentially lower.

It was a little adventure making that one... but I'll try a few others from that collection, for sure.

As this is exactly something that my novel series FMC Laura would know and do, since she has a small – like 120 sft. – kitchen, like me. Different than me, though, she's already decluttered it and only kept the things she uses.

I mentioned in the header of this year's yum-collection that Laura makes MMC Vince shed some of his traditional food biases by cooking the familiar and adding ingredients that are usually not used in it.

Alone the idea of baking a cake in a pan, even an ordinary one as this one, would be quite an event for him. He's a great cook, but the sweet yums? What do you have a Mamma, Nonna, five Aunts & four Big Sisters for, huh?

And what does "ordinary" mean anyway?

This one's a yummy bombshell, basta!



Serves: 12 pieces

Prep Time: 90 minutes

Degree of Difficulty: Easy



WE NEED


Dough: Since I only had a 24 cm / 9.5 in instead of a 28 cm / 11 in pan, I downsized measures, therefore the odd numbers in brackets.

120 (90) gr / 4.3 (3.2) oz. butter
2 eggs M-sized
60 (45) gr / 2.1 (1.6) oz. sugar
60 (45) gr / 2.1 (1.6) oz. brown sugar
2 bananas
230 (170) gr / 8.1 (6) oz. flour Spelt here.
1 tsp baking powder
70 (52) gr / 2.5 (1.9) oz. walnuts
1 tbsp oil I used a (high-quality) frying oil consisting of canola, sunflower & safflower oils.


Icing In original quantity.

50 gr / 1.75 oz. butter at room temperature
70 gr / 2.5 oz. icing sugar
250 gr / 8.8 iz. cream cheese Natural = UN-flavored / - processed.
1 tsp lime juice I added this as the topping tasted too sweet.



WE DO

1. Melt the butter in a pot. Mix flour & baking powder. Peel + mash the bananas. Chop the walnuts.


2. Beat eggs + sugars until frothy, and mix in the bananas & flour mix. At last, carefully fold in the walnuts.


3. Grease a 24/28 cm = 9.5/11 in pan with oil and bring to medium heat. Pour the dough into the pan and put on the lid.




4. Bake for 5 minutes, then lower the temperature and bake for another 20 minutes. Then flip the cake.



For that, you loosen the cake from the pan with a non-metallic spatula and turn it onto a wire rack lined with baking paper. Put a large plate on top, flip once more, loosen the baking paper and put the cake back into the pan with its unfinished side. OR you do what I did – with two spatulas: one levering the cake on one side, the other pushing in the other direction on the other side.

Finish baking for another 5 minutes on medium heat. Then turn onto the wire rack to cool.


5. ICING: beat butter + icing sugar until frothy, then mix in the cream cheese tablespoon-wise.


6. Spread icing on the cake, refrigerate for 30 minutes then


7. Serve.


Guten Hunger!