Banana brownie cake

A super-delicious moist brownie cake with melted chocolate and creamy mashed bananas inside, with a chocolate-butter glaze and some spices to make it all wonderful :). 
The textures and flavors all work together perfectly. If you like chocolate and bananas and a moist rich cake, then this is the thing for you.

Recipe adapted from here.

Last year: Chickpea and ras-el-hanout cous cous (Moroccan-style) (vegan).
Two years ago: Raspberry-chocolate brownies.
Three years ago: baby making and no cooking :)




Ingredients (for a 23 cm cake tin):

For the cake:

• 200 g butter
• 300 g sugar (half white, half brown)
• 200 g chocolate (half of it dark, the other half milk chocolate)
• a handful of lightly chopped walnuts
• 3 eggs
• 2 very ripe bananas
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• a pinch of ground ginger
• a pinch of salt
• 100 g flour (all purpose or 50% wholemeal)
• 3-4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

For the glaze:

• 100 g milk chocolate
• 20 g butter
• 1-2 tablespoons wholefat milk
• some golden sugar pearls/sprinkles (and/or lightly crushed banana chips)

Note: I usually favor dark chocolate in cakes and glazes, but I think mellowing it down by using more milk chocolate works best with the banana flavor in this one.

To get started, preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Line a 23 cm (9 inch) cake tin with baking paper or butter it really well. Peel and mash the bananas in a little bowl. In a small bowl set over low heat, melt the butter with the chocolates and the sugars.

Mix well. Remove from the heat once everything seems even. Wait for it to cool a bit, then mix in the eggs, the vanilla, almond, ginger and salt. Also add the chopped nuts.

Mix the flour with the cocoa and baking powder and gradually add them to the wet mix. When all seems well incorporated, pour the cake batter in the prepared tin:

Put it in the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the cake only comes out with a few wet crumbs. Take out and allow to cool a bit.

Transfer to a serving platter. To make the glaze, break the chocolate into cubes and melt it with the butter and milk in a small pot over low heat. Wait for it to cool and pour over the cake. Decorate with gold sugar sprinkles (like I did here) or broken banana chips (or both).

It's done, dig in! :)