Banana Chocolate Cake

Three bananas with black-spotted skin were waiting for me to cook them away. The soft texture and sweet flavor from ripe banana is perfect for desserts. And, since it has been a while for me to bake a cake, I decided to bake a banana cake.

Baking is very different from cooking - I mean, cooking savory foods. Baking is a kind of chemistry --- the ratio between flour, leavening agent (baking soda or baking powder), liquid, acidity, sugar levels are crucial for a successful baked good. You need good recipe, and you rarely modify the recipe for baking. And, when it comes to recipes for cakes, the recipes from Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum are my first choice.

Today's Banana Chocolate Cake is based on Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cordon Rose Banana Cake and Sour Cream Ganache. This banana cake has just enough sweetness with full banana flavor, and this is definitely the most moist and delicious banana cake I ever had. Furthermore, the sour cream balances the sweet chocolate and give the ganache very interesting flavor which goes well with banana cake. If you don't want chocolate ganache, you can simply dust the cake with powdered sugar and decorate with slices of banana.

Banana Chocolate Cake
(Yield: one 8"-9" cake / Cooking time: 1.5 hours)
* This recipe is adopted from Cordon Rose Banana Cake recipe and Sour Cream Ganache recipe in Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Ingredients:

+ 2-2.5 ripe banana (227g) + 2 Tbsp sour cream + 2 large eggs + lemon zest from one lemon + 2 tsp vanilla extract

+ 2 cups cake flour (200g) + 2/5 cup sugar* + 1 tsp baking soda + 3/4 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt + 10 Tbsp softened unsalted butter

* Original recipe by Rose Levy Beranbaum calls for 3/4 cup and 2 Tbsp sugar. I reduced the sugar by about 1 Tbsp.


* Sour Cream Ganache
+ 4oz bittersweet chocolate
+ 4oz semisweet chocolate (hold onto some to make chocolate dust for decoration)
+ 9oz sour cream, room temperature

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and melt in microwave or over a double boiler. Add sour cream to the melted chocolate and stir well until the ganache has uniform color (no white trace of sour cream). Please make sure that sour cream is at room temperature before adding to the chocolate. Otherwise, the chocolate will coagulate and the ganache will have grainy texture.

Procedures:
1. Preheat your oven at 350°F (177°C).

2. Mash banana with a fork, and stir in sour cream. Next, add eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla. Mix well.


3. Mix cake flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, just to blend all the dry ingredients together. Add softened, room temperature butter to the dry ingredients and combine well. Add banana mixture from #1 in three batches. For each batch, mix well to aerate and strengthen the cake's structure.


4. Line a 9" cake pan (or springform) with a parchment paper. Butter the pan and parchment paper, and sprinkle flour just to dust the surface. Pour the cake batter from #2 and bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes.


5. Check if the cake is baked by inserting a cake tester in the center of the cake. If the tester comes out clean, the cake is baked enough. Let the baked cake cool in the pan on a wired rack for 10 minutes.


6. If the cake is baked in uneven shape, trim the cake after the cake has cooled completely. Then, coat the cake with Sour Cream Ganache evenly with an offset spatula.


7. Make chocolate dust by scraping a bit of chocolate with a knife. Decorate the top of cake with chocolate dust.


Enjoy~