Forgiving Banana Cake

If making cupcakes, add 2 tablespoons of batter in each cupcake paper. I used the Lakeland ones, the box says 44x25 mm. The batter is enough for 20 cupcakes, plus 9 larger muffin cases (the ones you need for a 12-muffin size muffin tin). Bake cupcakes for 20 minutes at 180°C, muffins for 25-30 minutes. I don't like the greyish tinge a lot of banana cakes get. So I always use the darkest type of brown sugar I can get. I also substitute part of the weight of the flour with custard powder for that reason. The bright yellow colour kind of masks the grey. You can substitute up to 30 % of the flour in any cake recipe with either corn flour or custard powder. This also helps make your cake lighter. Again, I go by the seat of my pants: Add corn flour/custard powder first, when your bowl is on the scales, and top up with flour. This cake will keep for up to a week in the fridge, wrapped in tin foil. If it lasts that long... It yields a very moist cake, and the riper the bananas you use, the more fragrant the cake will be. As you might have gathered, this is a very forgiving recipe. You can play around with the proportions quite a lot. Just make sure the sugar is well-dissolved before adding your other ingredients and use fresh baking powder. If you don't have any bananas, use other fruit or fruit pulp. I have successfully made this cake with mashed apricots too, I've even topped up the weight of the mashed bananas with applesauce and the result was fine. My sister successfully used rhubarb compote and Mum once used blueberry compote. The result of that one looked a bit Halloween-ish though. But it was delicious! Sometimes I use all the ingredients. Sometimes I don't. I never leave out the lemon juice, though. But leaving out the zest and using chocolate chips instead of nuts is a pretty yummy idea, even though I say so myself. Hot tip: If you want the tear in the cake to be nice and straight, wet your finger and draw a straight line across the top of the (raw) batter, lengthwise, before putting it in the oven. Or have a knife at the ready, and as soon as you see your cake starting to rise, cut the top with the knife (lengthwise). The tear will follow that line. If the top of the (large) cake browns too much, cover with tin foil to protect it and prevent more browning. Don't worry if you have several trays of cupcakes. This past week-end I put the cupcakes in first, filled the muffin cases, opened the oven and added the tray with muffins, and when the baking time for the cupcakes was over, took out that tray and left in the muffins. No harm done. They all rose beautifully. Enjoy! =)

If making cupcakes, add 2 tablespoons of batter in each cupcake paper. I used the Lakeland ones, the box says 44x25 mm. The batter is enough for 20 cupcakes, plus 9 larger muffin cases (the ones you need for a 12-muffin size muffin tin). Bake cupcakes for 20 minutes at 180°C, muffins for 25-30 minutes. I don't like the greyish tinge a lot of banana cakes get. So I always use the darkest type of brown sugar I can get. I also substitute part of the weight of the flour with custard powder for that reason. The bright yellow colour kind of masks the grey. You can substitute up to 30 % of the flour in any cake recipe with either corn flour or custard powder. This also helps make your cake lighter. Again, I go by the seat of my pants: Add corn flour/custard powder first, when your bowl is on the scales, and top up with flour. This cake will keep for up to a week in the fridge, wrapped in tin foil. If it lasts that long... It yields a very moist cake, and the riper the bananas you use, the more fragrant the cake will be. As you might have gathered, this is a very forgiving recipe. You can play around with the proportions quite a lot. Just make sure the sugar is well-dissolved before adding your other ingredients and use fresh baking powder. If you don't have any bananas, use other fruit or fruit pulp. I have successfully made this cake with mashed apricots too, I've even topped up the weight of the mashed bananas with applesauce and the result was fine. My sister successfully used rhubarb compote and Mum once used blueberry compote. The result of that one looked a bit Halloween-ish though. But it was delicious! Sometimes I use all the ingredients. Sometimes I don't. I never leave out the lemon juice, though. But leaving out the zest and using chocolate chips instead of nuts is a pretty yummy idea, even though I say so myself. Hot tip: If you want the tear in the cake to be nice and straight, wet your finger and draw a straight line across the top of the (raw) batter, lengthwise, before putting it in the oven. Or have a knife at the ready, and as soon as you see your cake starting to rise, cut the top with the knife (lengthwise). The tear will follow that line. If the top of the (large) cake browns too much, cover with tin foil to protect it and prevent more browning. Don't worry if you have several trays of cupcakes. This past week-end I put the cupcakes in first, filled the muffin cases, opened the oven and added the tray with muffins, and when the baking time for the cupcakes was over, took out that tray and left in the muffins. No harm done. They all rose beautifully. Enjoy! =)