Even though I am really good in coming up with alternative ways to using a recipe, tweaking this and tweaking that and adjusting it to my own taste, up till now I had never ever made an entire recipe from scratch. Well that is not counting the cooking. I’m talking about baking in particular. Baking, as everyone who bakes knows, is a bit more particular. You can’t just simply throw in a little bit more of that or a little bit more of this; that will upset the delicate balance of the chemical reaction needed to make that cake or make sure that dessert sets. So I still tweaked and added but always within certain limits. I was careful.

But then today I was left with 3 bananas that were clearly very overripe. Ready to be used right now. And while I love banana bread I had never actually made (a really good) one. Tom is not too big a fan of banana, so anything I bake with banana will either be given away or will have to be eaten by me alone. Not an option, so I normally don’t do a lot of banana baking. But these three babies were just yelling at me to have a go. So I started searching through my endless pile of cookbooks for that perfect recipe, featuring the ingredients I had on hand and… couldn’t find it. Well, I found plenty of banana bread or banana cake recipes but just not exactly what I was looking for.

Gizmo was still alive when taking these photos!

And then I remembered we still had that book called Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking which basically explains the various ratios needed to start baking from scratch. So I took out the book, flipped open the chapter on ‘batters’ and read through it carefully. Now for quick breads or muffins the ratio is 2 parts flour, two parts liquid, one part egg and one part butter. Sounds fairly simple I thought.

So I started jotting down the basic ingredients, subtracting some of the fluids for the banana, changing the flours around to give it a bit of different taste, adding fillings, calculating how much salt it would need and how much baking powder. I also didn’t exactly know how much flour I would need to fill a bundt form so I guessed it and based all the other calculations on that. I was close but it was a tiny bit too much making the batter almost overflow the tin!

Zelfs Gizmo vond het een lekkere cake!

Set out all my ingredients; eggs, cinnamon, bananas, almond flour, chocolate chunks, butter (made browned butter for this! Sooo good!), pecans, baking powder and measured and weighed and wrote it all down to make sure I didn’t miss anything. And I had so much fun in the process! Going through my cabinets and fridge to see if there was anything else I could add. I am sure there was but I also didn’t want to jinx my first effort so I just went with the safer options.

Ofcourse I am aware of the fact that there must easily be a zillion banana chocolate bread recipes out there and mine is no rocket science but I had so much fun creating the recipe and doing all those calculations. And what’s even better is when all those calculations turn out to be correct… πŸ˜‰

I knew I had overfilled my Bundt tin just a bit but figured it might just hold. I had to restrain myself from sitting in front of the oven for an hour watching the cake rise and seeing what was happening! But I cannot complain really. Call it beginners luck but the cake turned out completely perfect. Moist on the inside, deliciously crispy on the outside. Not too sweet with just the hint of the almond flour and the burned butter coming through. Maybe add a tiny bit more cinnamon for next time but man, I am so thrilled with this recipe!

Banana chocolate bundt cake

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GangDessert

Prep time 15 minutes
Cooking time 1 hour

12

Ingredients

  • 400 gr all purpose flour
  • 100 gr almond flour
  • 300 gr buttermilk
  • 300 gr very ripe bananas
  • 1 tsp of cinnamon
  • 75 gr chocolate chunks
  • 250 gr of browned butter
  • 250 gr sugar
  • 225 gr of egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 50 gr pecans chopped
  • 16 gr baking powder
  • pinch of salt

  • To make the burned/browned butter put the butter into a saucepan and slowly let it melt until the butter starts to become brown. Careful as it can go really quick at the end. Once it starts to smell amazing you know you're good to go. Turn of the heat and let it cool down a bit.
  • Preheat your oven to 180 C.
  • Combine all the dry ingredients into one bowl (flours, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt) and mix well to combine.
  • Mix your wet ingredients in another bowl (buttermilk, egg, vanilla essence). Mash your bananas and add them to the wet ingredients. Stir well to mix.
  • Combine your wet and dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon into well combined. Don't overbeat at this point.
  • Once all mixed ad your melted butter in and also stir in the pecannuts and chocolate chunks. Again, stir to just combine.
  • I used a bundt cake form but the batter was just a tiny bit too much for my form. Ofcourse you can use any other tin you want. Just make sure you adjust the baking times where needed.
  • Bake in the preheated oven for about 50-60 min or until a wooden skewer comes out fairly clean. Don't let it get too dry.

Disclaimer

The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.

Did you make this recipe?Mention @insimoneskitchen_ or tag #insimoneskitchen!

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Simone van den Berg

Food blogger from the Netherlands. Loves good food. Likes to create healthy and easy recipes for daily use, but also loves the occasional sweet dish. Lives in the Netherlands with her two cats; Humphrey and Buffy. Profession: Food photographer, food blogger, recipe developer and nutritionist