Banana Chocolate Chip Bundt

I had such a wonderfully relaxing day yesterday! While all the girls and the other madrichot went on a tiyul, I stayed home. I went out to pick up some books- it was a glorious day outside. I came back, cleaned, organized my room, did laundry, and baked this Banana Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake. In the afternoon, A came over to visit for a few hours. Such a good day! But back to the cake. I finally finished the bananas. Woo hoo! Anyway, I hadnt made a plain banana cake in a while so I figured, why not? One of my girls, J, has a been requesting banana chocolate chip something but she insists she never gets any when I do make the combo. So this cake was made especially for her. I used the recipe for banana cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking book. The only change I made was to use the rest of the buttermilk sitting in my fridge instead of the sour cream or yogurt. I also added chocolate chips. The cake released beautifully from the pan, except for a few chocolate chips that decided to stick to the pan leaving little holes in the surface of the cake. The cake was deliciously moist and tender, almost to the point of falling apart. The banana flavor was surprisingly strong despite the few bananas I used, I guess because they were extremely overripe. I told J to take the plate of cake and it disappeared. All I heard about the cake from her was OMG, it was amazing. Here's to hoping I see the plate sometime soon.

Classic Banana Bundt Cake

adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
About 4 very ripe bananas, mashed (you should have 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups)
1 cup buttermilk

Chocolate chip

Preheat the oven to 350. Generously grease a large bundt pan. Set aside.
Place the margarine and sugar in a large bowl.

Cream.
Add the eggs and vanilla,
and beat until smooth.
Add the bananas and blend.
Add some of the dry ingredients,
and blend.
Then add some of the buttermilk and blend. Repeat, ending with the dry ingredients.
Here is the blended batter.
Add chocolate chips.
Gently stir them in.
Pan the batter,
and bake for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow to cool for about ten minutes in the pan before unmolding it and cooling completely on a wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

Chocolate Streusel Coffee Cake

I've finally gotten my hands on a Kugelhopf pan! I've wanted this pan for as long as I've known what it was and I finally found an inexpensive one. Now, Im sure it's not the greatest quality but it definitely serves its purpose. After all this time, I got around to toiveling it on Friday. Now, it was ready for its debut. What to make in it? Chocolate Streusel Coffeecake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, that's what. This simple, great with coffee cake was one that I'd been wanting to cross of my list. What's strange about it is that it makes only a small bundt and two cupcakes. What's with the weird size? Enter the Kugelhopf pan, the perfect size to accommodate all of the batter! Interestingly, enough, this cake doesnt make use of Rose's usual technique of beating the dry ingredients with the fats and then adding the liquids but rather uses the typical creaming method. Nothing notable to say except that I swapped out some cream cheese and buttermilk for the sour cream, with great results. Yay for finishing the cream cheese and not wasting anything! The streusel is made of some cocoa powder, brown sugar, and cinnamon. The cinnamon adds a nice warm element to the chocolate. The sugar melts and melds with the cocoa to make a nice fudgy swirl. This cake receives good flavor and moist texture from all the dairy. It was quite good but in a book of delicious cakes might be overlooked for its simplicity.

Chocolate Streusel Coffee Cake

from Rose's Heavenly Cakes

Streusel:

3 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Cake:

1 3/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 plus 1/8 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

8 tbsp butter or margarine

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 egg white

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 350. Generously grease a kugelhopf pan. Set aside.

In a small bowl, place the streusel ingredients.
Using your fingers, break up the brown sugar lumps and mix to combine. Set aside.

Place the flour, leavenings and salt in a bowl.

Whisk and set aside.
Place the margarine in a bowl.
Beat until light and creamy.
Slowly add in the sugar and beat until fluffy.
Add the eggs and vanilla.
Beat until smooth.
Add the dairy,
and beat until smooth.
Add the dry ingredients,
and mix to form a uniform batter.
Spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan.
Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the cake batter, covering the entire surface.
Spread the remaining batter atop the streusel, covering all of the edges.
Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Let cool for a few minutes before depanning. Cool completely on wire rack.

Chocolate Banana Marble Bread

Round two of my banana mission! After this, I only have three bananas left to use. This is good news! Yesterday, on my in day, I baked. Of course. This is getting to be really bad. And now that Pesach is coming, I have so much to get rid of before I leave and that means more baking which means more tasting which means weight gain, something I hate! But back to the baked good at hand. I decided that bananas are a most underused fruit in baking. After doing extensive flipping through my books, I finally hit on this Banana Chocolate Bread from the Art and Soul of Baking and thought it would be perfect. Banana bread with a twist. And it used three bananas and some buttermilk. Double score! Annoyingly, this recipe required me to dirty quite a few bowls. First mix the bananas and liquid, combine dry ingredients, make a cocoa paste and then cream the margarine and sugar. After that, the steps finally come together. Half the batter is mixed with the cocoa paste, dolloped in the pan and then swirled and baked. The resulting loaf is quite attractive, moist and full of good banana flavor. The chocolate is strong, due to the cocoa paste, made by pouring boiling water over the cocoa powder to bring out its flavor. However, it does strike a good balance with the bananas. I wonder if it would make much of a difference to just add cocoa powder without making the paste... I also think my marble-ing technique needs a bit of work as at one end of the loaf was a huge amount of chocolate with very little plain batter. Ill have to make another marble cake to correct this problem.. Oh well! All in all this is definitely a winner and, while this is really more like a cake because of the creaming method, it really is a great alternative to plain banana bread.

Chocolate Banana Marble Bread

from the Art and Soul of Baking

2-3 very ripe bananas

1/4 cup buttermilk

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup dutch cocoa powder

3 tbsp boiling water

1 1/2 sticks butter or margarine, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan and set aside.
Place the bananas in a small bowl and mash very well.
Add the buttermilk and vanilla,
and whisk to blend.
Place all of the dry ingredients in another bowl,
and whisk to blend.
In a small bowl, place the cocoa and pour the boiling water over it.
Stir to make a thick but pourable paste. If its too thick, add additional water.
In a large bowl, place the margarine and sugar.
Cream until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time,
blending thoroughly after each addition.Add the flour mixture in partsalternately with the banana mixture, ending with the flour mixture.
Here is the completed batter.
Separate half the mixture and add the cocoa paste.
Stir thoroughly to blend.
Dollop the batters as such in the pan.
Using a knife or a spoon, swirl the batters together.
Bake for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack. When cool, remove from the pan and slice.