OK so this is my first food post here in New Zealand.
There is one thing to mention in introduction to this post which is that although we have been in the country nearly 7 weeks now, our shipment (read most of my kitchen stuff) hasn't arrived yet and is still a way off due to a delay (don't ask!).
This means that my cooking and certainly my baking has been pretty limited. In fact, until the weekend when my lovely other half Andy started dropping unsubtle hints (like, "I could really do with something home made to take to work for an afternoon snack to stop me resorting to kitkat chunkys!") I hadn't baked at all in over 2 months since we started packing up our kitchen back in Manchester.
So anyway, I agreed to bake but the only baking tin I have is a brownie pan that I bought here which means I'm kind of stuck to baking traybakes. Still there's plenty of scope there as traybakes are really versatile, and once i got baking again, I realised how much I'd missed it.
This traybake is a banana and walnut cake with a browned butter and yogurt glaze.
I don't have any scales here so the measurements are approximate. I will update it to metrics as soon as I get my scales delivered. I know I will be making this again.
The glaze is delicious although very very sweet. I wanted to try a frosting with browned butter as it's all over the blog world at the moment and i knew the nuttiness would work well with the banana and walnut. It has kind of an American taste as they like their desserts super sweet but the cake would still be delicious without it. Its quite a liquid batter and makes a really moist, dense cake. Delicious with a cup of tea mid afternoon. Oh how English I feel!
Here's how i made it:
For the cake:
200g Butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 overripe bananas- the blacker the better
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
half teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt
half a cup chopped walnuts
For the glaze:
75g butter
2 dessertspoons greek yogurt
150g icing sugar
Method:
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees (fan).
Melt the butter in a large shallow heavy bottomed pan. Keep it on a medium heat until it starts to brown (you will see brown particles on the bottom of the pan). Keep stirring. When there is quite a lot of brown on the bottom of the pan, take it off the heat.
Mash the bananas with a potato masher in a large mixing bowl.
Add the sugar and the browned butter to the bananas and beat thoroughly.
Beat in the eggs one by one until you have a smooth batter then mix in the walnuts.
Sift in the flour, cinnamon and baking powder and fold in until only just mixed.
Bake for around 30 minutes or until a skewer or knife comes out clean. You could make this in a loaf tin instead of a tray, if so cook for longer, around 45-50 minutes.
To make the glaze, brown the butter for the glaze in the same way you browned the butter for the cake.
Leave to cool slightly while you combine the yogurt and icing sugar. When this is thoroughly mixed, beat in the (still liquid) brown butter and beat well until you get a smooth brownish mixture.
Pour over the cake while still warm and then leave to set for a couple of hours.
I gave some to the builders next door and they seemed to like it. I also ate 3 pieces one after the other all by myself. The texture of the cake with the fudgy tangy frosting just had me hooked. In fact... i might go back for a fourth piece... catch ya later...!
Labels: cakes
