Chocolate Banana Quick Cake

This chocolate cake will certainly make you go bananas! Just like its title in Tish Boyle's Cake Book, it is easy breezy and quick to whip up and most importantly, decadently good to eat! It is chocolatey rich, wonderfully moist and banana-ly fragrant! I've tried four cakes from Boyle's book and so far, none has disappoint. If you're expecting guests over for tea, you can dress this cake up to further impress with practically zero effort! After baking is done and 20 minutes out of the oven, invert the cake from the baking tray onto a cake plate or cake stand. Remove the baking paper that lined the bottom (now the bottom becomes the top after inverted). Leave until the cake is completely cool. Just before serving, place a doily on the cake and using a sifter, sieve some icing sugar all over to cover the surface. Gently lift up the doily away from the cake so that the rest of the icing sugar on the doily doesn't spill onto the cake and spoil the pattern. You'll get a pretty neat pattern on the cake. Decorate the center with fresh berries of your choice.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
1/4 tsp salt (omit salt if using salted butter)
1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar (I reduced it to 3/4 cup for less sweetness)
2 large eggs
1 1/3 cups mashed ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream (I used yoghurt)
4 ounces (113 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Method:

- Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda into a medium bowl. Add the salt. Mix well to combine. Set aside. 

- In a bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until creamy and light. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

- Add the mashed bananas and vanilla extract until well blended.

- At low speed, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating it with the sour cream or yoghurt in two additions. Mix until well combined.

- By hand, stir in the chopped chocolate.

- Scrap the batter with a spatula into a paper-lined 9 inch baking pan. Smooth the top with the spatula.

- Bake the cake for 55 minutes at 160 deg Celsius or until an inserted cake tester comes out clean.

- Cool the cake in the pan for 20 minutes, then turn it onto a plate to cool completely.