CHOCOLATE BANANA CAKE

17/4/2011

There are a lot of birthdays this month. My niece's birthday fell on 14/4/2011 and being a weekday, I was not able to bake her a cake. So I baked her this Chocolate Banana Cake on Sunday.

I had some bananas sitting in the fridge and the skin are already darken but inside its just ripe. So actually, if you cannot finish your bananas just throw them in the fridge and make use of them later.

I had 2 options for this cake.

The first recipe use sponge cake and chocolate cream.

The second recipe was taken from Zang Toi's recipe which he serve in his New York cafe. I decide to use his recipe as I like cake better than sponge.

Instead of a square cake, I baked it in 2 cake tins and should have got 4 layers. However, I broke one layer and hence the cake is only a 3-layer cake. Anyway that's good - 3 in Chinese -lively- good omen for birthday!

The cake uses a chocolate sauce and then top with sliced bananas. There is no extra cream/frosting between the layers. The chocolate sauce is very yummy.

The final layer is topped with the chocolate sauce left plain. I did not had the opportunity to get a good picture of a slice of the cake as she was not at home when I delivered the cake.

But the cake is very good-soft and chocolatey.

I will try the sponge cake with the chocolate cream filling another time.

After that, Sarah tested a packet of the pre-mix of Macaroons. A 250 gm pre-mix costs RM10.90. We were told that we should be able to get 50 macaroons from it. She only had to mix it with warm water, whipped it up for 5 minutes and then baked immediately.

The amazing thing is that they puff up very nicely and develop those characteristic "fuzzy legs" almost immediately! There is definitely no such thing as "failed attempt" here.

However, I cannot vouch for the taste. They are not chewy nor do they melt in your mouth. And you can detect the chemicals smell.