Sticky banana and maple syrup cake bars

Sticky cake bars with whole banana pieces (and banana puree in the batter), maple syrup, almond flour and intense vanilla flavor. Also quite light for this kind of cake, not much butter involved compared with other recipes (it's replaced by Greek yogurt), but I can swear you won't miss it in this recipe. I honestly don't think this is a recipe that could still be improved.
Pretty easy to make and exquisitely fancy and delicious. Perfect with tea :)
Recipe source: Good Food.

Last year: Cheddar and leek muffins.
Two years ago: Asian white fish (pangasius) fillet with sesame noodles, Ruladă de pui cu spanac (Romanian chicken and spinach roulade) and Green pasta and pesto souffle (gratin).





Ingredients (for a 21 cm square dish):

• 100 g softened butter, plus a little extra for the form
• 8 tablespoons ahorn syrup, plus extra to serve
• 3 small bananas + 1 very ripe banana
• 200 g brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tablespoons vanilla paste (or the seeds from 2 vanilla beans)
• 200 g flour
• 100 g ground almonds (almond flour)
• 1 teaspoon soda
• 200 g Greek yogurt

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Butter the baking dish and put a 21 cm square piece of baking paper on it. Pour 4 tablespoons of maple syrup on it and try to spread it around:

Cut the 3 bananas in half (maintaining their length) and put them in the dish, with the cut part down.

Put the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and the ripe banana in a mixer / food processor.

Blend it into a paste. Mix together the flour with the baking soda and almond flour, then pour it over the paste previously blended and mix again. Also add the yogurt:

Mix until even and the batter is done. Pour it carefully in the baking dish over the bananas:

Put it in the oven and bake it for 45 minutes - 1 hour until a skewer inserted inside comes out almost clean, with just a few wet crumbles on it. Take it out (and don't worry if it raised so much that it broke):

Poke dents in it with the skewer and pour the rest of the maple syrup (another 4 tablespoons) on it, waiting a bit for it to get absorbed.
Allow to cool a bit, then revert it on a platter (in our case, a completely non-fancy cutting board :P). Gently peel off the piece of baking paper:

Cut into bars, transfer to serving plates and dig in! (with extra maple syrup drizzled on, if you'd like).