Eggless Banana Cake

Sheen loves banana so much; if there's a bunch at home, he will reach out for one the minute he's out of bed. He will eat banana for supper as well :-)))

Despite so, the banana ripen so fast that it often overripe and rot before he can finish it. I wouldn't eat banana for the high sugar and starch content but quite a different story it is baked.

After the last attempt I had been trying to find time to test out the recipe again... between the time flipping thru my books, I found an eggless cake recipe in Alex Goh's Baking Code. I bought the book quite some time back but didn't get down to try out any of the recipe cos I spot some errors in a couple of the recipes. Since I was bored, and in an adventuous mood, I thought why not?


Blessed is my day - all went well (almost)!

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Updated 3/12: I have taken down the modified version. You can find the original Alex Goh's recipe here .

Eggless Banana Cake
Adapted from Alex Goh Baking Code P23
Yield 16 cupcakes

200g Butter
100g Sugar (original 160g)
200g Milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
120g Self Raising Flour (I used BlueKey Flour, 8.5% protein)

120g plain flour (I used Gold Medal, 10%)
4 banana, coursely mashed

Method:

1. cream butter and sugar until light
   
2. add milk & vanilla essence gradually, whip until light and smooth
   
3. add flour & mix until well blended.


4. add mashed banana


5. Bake in 20cm round mould in 180C oven for 50min. I bake for 20min for cupcake.
   

It was so good that I cleaned off 5 in a go. In the end I realised there isn't much left to give away. So I gone on to scrape my fridge... no more butter but there's a tub of buttercream which I made last week. Buttercream is essentially butter + icing sugar, so I re-calculate the proportion of the remaining ingredient and presto!

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Baking Notes:

The first time I used 100% self raising flour and end up the cake sink in the middle. I think this is due to too much leavening.

So the 2nd round I use half plain flour and half self raising flour. The one on right was from the improvised recipe.

Having said I think the better solution is perhaps stick to the original recipe : 240g plain flour + 1 3/4 tsp baking powder. :-)))
I found these possibilities for a sinking cake (from here) when investigating my case, and would post them here for sharing & learning:

Why Some Cake Fall?

• Some cakes fall because they were not completely cooked, that is usually the case. Use a heating core when making big cake.
• Some fall because there is too much grease on the pan, likely why commercial bakers only grease the bottom of the pans for most cakes, because cakes support themselves on the sides of the pan while they are in the rising process.
• Some cakes, particularly ones with sour cream or chocolate cakes and some very rich cake batters have a natural tendency to sink a bit and this is just the nature of those recipes.
• Some cakes do fall because they were over beaten and the air inside kind of collapses.
• Some fall because the temperature of the oven is too high causing the cake to rise too rapidly.If you open the door to check on the cake before the first 20 minutes or so of baking, this can cause the cake to fall as can closing the oven door too sharply in the early stages of baking.
• Some fall because they were set to cool in a drafty place,
• Some fall because they are really delicate and they were placed on the cooling rack too sharply.
• Some cakes fall because it just plain isn't a good recipe, there is too much leavening action taking place, too many beaten eggs with too much baking soda or baking powder.

This recipe is certainly a keeper. I see myself using this as a building block for different type of fruit cake; blueberry, apple, strawberry etc! If you are using fruit which are more sour (like strawberry), maybe you need to add more sugar.