MOCHA BANANA CAKE or a Bellau Kitchen inspiration.

Blogging has been an unexpected joy and revelation in my life.  Being able to tell a story and have total strangers from all over the world read and respond is something I still find quite amazing.  On top of that, reading other blogs has been inspirational, educational and sometimes very helpful.  We have also made many good friends, real ones who we meet up with often, as a result of blogging, which is probably the greatest joy of all.

I have countless recipes from baking blogs bookmarked for future use – sometimes I feel compelled to bake something almost immediately, other times the inspiration is just tucked away for the right time.  One of the blogs where I regularly get inspiration is Dom’s Bellau Kitchen.  Just the other day I was looking at one of his recipes and ended up following a link to his coffee, chocolate and banana cake.*  With two rather sad looking bananas sitting in the fruit bowl just waiting to be loved, the inspiration fell into the immediate category.

The great thing about the recipe is that it was so fast to make.  I didn’t even have to mash the bananas – they just went into the mixing bowl with all the other ingredients and in less than an hour later I had a really delicious cake on the table.  You would never know that it was such a quick and easy cake to make and that I hadn’t spent hours sifting, mixing, blending and beating.

The banana flavour was strong but not too sickly or overpowering.  The cinnamon, chocolate and coffee were all identifiable in the background and made for a change from my usual date and walnut combination.  Definitely a recipe I will be using again, especially when I’m pressed for time and feel the urge to bake something that will be on the table in super quick time.

When making my cake I followed Dom’s recipe which you can see here,* but as usual I didn’t have all the suggested ingredients to hand so I improvised a bit.  I mixed 1 tblsp of cocoa and 1 tblsp of instant coffee powder to a paste with 2 tblsp hot water as I didn’t have any freshly made espresso on the go.  I also used golden caster sugar and omitted the icing entirely –  I used my 20cm Ikea tin which produced the shape on top to make it look more interesting without it.  It would have been even more delicious and glamorous with it of course, but sometimes a plain cake is just what you need when you’re in a hurry.

Cuts into 8-10 slices.

*Well, fancy that, as so often happens, the recipe has disappeared from Dom's website and all you get when following the link is "Page not found, Error 404" instead !!

It's so infuriating when this happens, especially for me as it's a recipe I use fairly regularly.  Luckily, I had saved a copy of it in my documents so that I could print a copy for a friend so here it is, found and not lost forever after all !!

After a bit of detective work, with my Sherlock Holmes hat on, I found the recipe again and, fingers crossed, it should appear when you click here : https://www.dominthekitchen.com/2013/12/coffee-chocolate-banana-cake-with-a-coffee-chocolate-clotted-cream-ganache.html

CHOCOLATE, COFFEE AND BANANA CAKE (BELLAU KITCHEN)

for the cake
8oz self-raising flour
4oz butter
4oz sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 shot of espresso coffee
2 ripe bananas
2 large free-range eggs – beaten

for the icing
150g butter
100g good quality dark chocolate
1 shot of espresso coffee
100ml Rodda’s clotted cream

grease and line a loaf tin or a 20cm loose-bottom cake tin and pre-heat the oven to 180C

place all the cake ingredients into a bowl and beat together with an electric whisk, pour into the cake tin and bake for 45mins or until golden and risen, take out of the oven and set aside until completely cool

for the ganache, melt the butter and chocolate together then stir in the coffee before beating in the cream until the icing is light and fluffy then slather all over the cake