banana bread vs. banana cake

I made the most delicious banana treat ever yesterday, while it was raining and storming. Bread? Cake? I’m not sure what to call it. Technically, it’s banana bread, but I put it in an 8 by 8 square pan, so it resembled a cake to me. I’m in love with my 8 by 8 square plan and have been using it nonstop. It’s the perfect size: long enough to slice up in squares, but not big enough to classify it as a big cake.

I was looking for a nice quick bake and decided on this Martha Stewart recipe. It had all the required ingredients, and would use up the last of the sour cream that I had. I hate wasting food so using this up has been a priority to me.

While I liked how easy the original recipe was, I knew I was gonna play around with the ingredients. Banana bread can be boring, and lord knows how many times I’ve hand just bland banana bread.

This time I threw in 4 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, and chopped it up into small pieces. I also used low fat sour cream because it was all I had on hand and it gave the cake a nice fluffy texture.

I threw all the ingredients into the food processor (another obsession of mine right now. No mess!) and voila! the cake came out beautifully. I even had enough batter to make some mini muffins. Because the chocolate is thrown into the food processor, you get these soft, chocolate flecks in the nice brown bread. And every now and then, you get a nice chunk of chocolate, which is never bad. I had enough batter left over so I put them in my mini muffin pan for a nice snack later.

Here’s the recipe for you. Feel free to play around with it and add more things in. It’s a good base, and one that I will use again.

Chocolate Banana Cake
adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature, plus more for pan
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup sour cream- I used light sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
• 4 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan; set aside. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and beat to incorporate.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined. Add bananas, sour cream, and vanilla; mix to combine. Toss in chocolate and pulse for just a second or two, until the chocolate is grinded up. Stir in nuts, and pour into prepared pan.

3. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Let rest in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.

(side note: because of the shape of my pan, I reduced the cooking time to 45 minutes.