UrbanU Tries...BBC Good Food's Sugar Free Banana Cake
They have been appearing out of ovens all over the UK. The banana loaf, or cake, seems to have become a staple of British baking during the lockdown. It seems like everywhere you turn someone else is cutting into a moist mix of overripe bananas, caster sugar and flour and then posting about it in their new online social circle. Banana cake is delicious, but it is incredibly sweet. Due to the nature of the cake, it is always suggested that overripe bananas are used. Not only does this encourage less waste but this is when the bananas are at their peak of sweetness being almost too sickly to eat.
The questions is, do we need to add sugar to an already hyper sweetened mix? How important is the sugar to the taste and consistency of the cake? Well, in true UrbanU style, we found a recipe which would hopefully answer our questions. The recipe being BBC Good Foods Sugar Free Banana Cake.
The Verdict
The mix itself was rather easy to do. It was simply a case of mixing the wet and dry ingredients separately before combining to make a slightly-wetter-than Victoria sponge cake batter. Nothing out of the ordinary. Possibly, being slightly over enthusiastic with the cinnamon and vanilla, the batter was a very dark brown colour and had a distinct smell of the two ingredients.
The batter was poured into a two-pound loaf tin and bundled into a 160-degree fan assisted oven for initially 40 minutes. The cake, although looking dark brown in colour, was still raw at this point. The issue was that it was still raw ten minutes later then another ten and another ten and then another ten minutes later, still raw. After the initial extra ten minutes, foil had to be added to the top of the cake as it was becoming too brown. Additionally, the amount of times the cake was removed from the oven made the
centre of it drop and sink. Eventually, an hour and 50 minutes after first going into the oven the banana cake came out. Still potentially raw, the cake was left to cool before glazing. The recipe calls for Agave Syrup, not being a normal cupboard staple we instead made a simple water and icing sugar glaze with added honey. Unfortunately, when drizzled on top of the cake, instead of running over the top and sides it kind of just made a puddle in the centre taking a long time to set.
Cutting through the cake, it was very dense and seemed to have multiple areas where the top had come away from the rest of the cake. The fruit, however, seemed to be evenly distributed throughout the cake. Now for the taste. Three words, too much cinnamon. This seemed like it could be the case when the cake was initially batter. Despite this, the flavours were pleasant, and the banana taste was strong. The cake did not really miss the sugar, it was certainly sweet enough with just the banana. The dense texture of the cake helped to make it stickier and as a result it did last the week until it was finished without going dry.
The idea and expectation of this cake really did more than the actual cake did itself. Adding three bananas to the cake is more than a standard banana loaf which would usually have two perhaps even one fruit in it. This means the cake does contain a lot of sugar, albeit natural. Additionally, the added sultanas are also full of sugar as well as the sugar full glaze. However, with a bit of work, this could work. The taste is there its just a consideration for the texture that needs to be had and how actually sugar free this cake really is.
Ingredients
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125g self-raising wholemeal flour
½ tsp baking powder
2tsp ground cinnamon
75g sultanas
50g butter, melted
2tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
1tbsp milk
3 ripe bananas, mashed
Drizzle Agave syrup (optional)
The Method
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Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C fan/ gas mark 4. Grease and line a 450g loaf/1lb tin with baking parchment.
Weigh the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and sultanas into a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon. Then weigh the butter, vanilla essence, egg, milk and mashed bananas and put into another bowl or jug and mix with a small balloon whisk or fork. Pour the ‘wet’ banana mixture into the ‘dry’ flour mixture and combine thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Weighing needs to be very accurate when baking so help older children to measure carefully. Younger children can also get involved by spooning or pouring into the scales with adult supervision. Younger children can also beat the egg with a fork and mash the banana with a potato masher.
Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 30 - 40 mins or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven, allow to cool in the tin for 10 mins then turn out.
Drizzle with agave syrup if using