PEANUT BUTTER BANANA BREAD CAKE WITH SEA SALT, CHOCOLATE AND CHILLI
When Nick’s birthday came around back in April, at the height of lockdown, if nothing else I HAD to bake a cake to stop the day running into every other day these past five weeks. Nick loves lemon custard tarts and carrot cake, but I only had old bananas and some peanut butter in the house…
So here it is, yet another version of a banana bread — no such thing as too much of that!!! To make it a bit more interesting and seeing as we had a TUB of peanut butter (seriously, you could swim in that thing), I thought this and chocolate was surely going to be the way to a man’s heart. Texture-wise, I thought back to all the many different gluten-free breads that I’ve made over the years and decided that the malty moist caraway banana bread cake would be the best kind of recipe to use thanks to its more gooey consistency.
It took me a couple of days to assemble this — such is busy lockdown life, plus we got a few delicious treats in the post from friends and family. I adjusted the original recipe by toasting the chickpea flour first to make sure it was cooked off, since I was changing the dimensions of my cake tin to smaller and inevitably thicker — and undercooked chickpea flour is not a good taste or good on the belly! Then I added more baking powder for a bit of oomph, some ginger, cinnamon and allspice to help digest this banana/chocolate/peanut butter/chickpea monster. I then sandwiched the cooked baked bread cake with thick layers of peanut butter, honey and coconut oil frosting. I was going to add chocolate chips to the batter but I forgot, so I poured a bar of melted chocolate over it instead.
You'll need a 6- or 7-inch cake tin in order to get two layers out of this. Once cool, I cut it in half lengthways, realised it was still a tad bit wet in the middle so turned the cut sides up and gave them a couple of minutes under the grill (yes, it worked!). I used coconut oil and thick-set honey to make a thick icing but you can use maple syrup and just peanut butter if you fancy more of a drizzle. This cake is moist, rich and salty-sweet… If you don’t have so much of a sweet tooth (and if your bananas are very ripe), feel free to reduce the jaggery in the base and the honey in the frosting.
And the verdict from Nick? Tastes like a giant Snickers.
INGREDIENTS
Serves 10
5 large ripe bananas (approx. 520g peeled)
¼ cup avocado oil or coconut oil
2 cups loose packed (195g) chickpea/gram flour
⅓ packed cup (50g) jaggery or coconut sugar
2 pinches sea salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ground ginger
½ tsp allspice
For the frosting
⅓ cup coconut oil
⅔ cup peanut butter (if the oil has separated, avoid this bit, otherwise it will make the icing too runny)
⅓ cup set honey — must be set honey, otherwise the icing will be runny and the cake will have to be kept in the fridge. Otherwise use ¼ cup jaggery/coconut sugar. Choose this option to make it vegan.)
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 pinches sea salt
To finish
1 bar dark (70%) chocolate (100g or 80g should do it)
Optional: Chilli flakes or whatever you would like to decorate
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan (gas mark 4).
In a dry large pan on medium high heat, toast the gram flour for 15 minutes, stirring frequently to ensure even toasting and to keep the flour from burning.
In a large bowl, mash the banana with the avocado oil — I like to use a whisk and smash it down.
In another bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients, then empty into the banana peanut mixture and mix until well combined.
Line a 7-inch cake tin with baking parchment and pour in the batter.
Bake for 25 minutes until lightly browned and slightly risen on top. Give it a spin after 20 minutes if one side of your oven is hotter like mine.
Place on a wire rack and allow to cool completely in the tin.
Meanwhile, prepare the frosting. In the warmer months, your coconut oil might be soft enough to work with as it is, otherwise gently warm it on the stove until it starts to melt.
Remove from the heat and mix in the peanut butter followed by the honey, vanilla and sea salt. Taste and add a touch more sea salt if you like. Set aside at room temperature.
Slice the cake lengthways carefully. If it’s wet in the middle, place under the grill for a minute or two until cooked — be careful, don’t burn it!
When cool enough, spread half of the peanut butter icing onto the bottom layer, top with the other half of the cake and spread the rest on top.
You can chill the cake while you melt the chocolate in a double boiler. For this step, break up the chocolate into squares and melt all but 2 squares in a glass or stainless steel pot set over a pan of simmering water. As soon as the chocolate is melted, remove from the heat and stir in the last 2 squares (this helps to keep the chocolate glossy) until they melt.
Slowly and gently pour over the melted chocolate to your liking. Sprinkle with chilli flakes and serve warm or wait until the chocolate has cooled and set. Best served with a cup of tea.
East by West tip: If you love the cardamom millionaires with gram shortbread in East by West page 104-5, then you’ll love this.
