Banana Cake with White Chocolate & Pecan Streusel

A few years ago I made the most delicious triple layer banana cake for my birthday.  I don’t remember now why I decided that a banana cake (with cream cheese frosting) was what I wanted—I usually make my Marbled Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake on my birthday.  Whatever the reason, I didn’t actually have a banana cake recipe in my repertoire that I particularly liked.  So I went looking for one.

Most of the time a spur of the moment search like this will result in an acceptable—maybe even excellent—recipe.  But this time, I happened upon the best banana cake I have ever had in my life.  There must have been something about her description (light and fluffy?) that attracted me.  Most banana cakes don’t seem very cake-like.  Often what passes for banana cake could be mistaken for banana bread that has just been baked in a layer cake instead of a loaf pan.  This style of cake tends to be kind of dense and dark…and not very sweet.  And I actually don’t object to this…as long as it is what you are prepared to have on your plate.  But since this was for my birthday, I wanted a true layer cake:  Something light, tender, finely grained…and sweet.  And that’s exactly what this recipe produced.   It is now my go to banana layer cake.

Unfortunately, I don’t make layer cakes that often.  I just don’t have that great of a need for them.  But I do make streusel-topped cakes (for my breakfast) on a regular basis (true story).  I’m not sure why it took me two years to turn this cake into a breakfast cake. 

Besides baking the cake in a 13- by 9-inch cake pan…and topping the cake with a streusel…I only made one minor change to the recipe itself:  I omitted a quarter cup of brown sugar.  I really didn’t want to change such a lovely cake too much, but the original cake really is quite sweet…and with a streusel more sugar would be piled on top.  I didn’t think this small percentage reduction in the sugar would have too much of an effect on the structure and tenderness of the cake…and it didn’t.  The cake is still sweet (and light and tender)—but not overly so (for a breakfast/snack cake).

I toyed with the idea of making only 2/3 of the batter for the same size pan and the same amount of streusel.  If you are a person who always wishes there was more streusel and less cake, then that might be  the route to go (you will find this to be an easy calculation).  But I really love the cake….and feel like it (rather than the streusel) should be the main event.  The result is a lofty cake…crowned with just the right amount of sweet crunch on top.  Perfect.  Now I have not only a “go-to” banana layer cake, I have a fantastic addition to my breakfast cake repertoire….which is just great since you can never have too many streusel cakes in your recipe file.

Banana Cake with White Chocolate & Pecan Streusel

Streusel:

1 c. (120 g.) all-purpose flour

1/2 c. (100 g.) golden brown sugar

3/8 t. salt

6 T. (85 g.) melted butter

3/4 c. (85 g.) pecans, lightly toasted and chopped

3/4 c. (128 g.) white chocolate chips (see notes)

                                             

Place the first 3 ingredients in a small bowl.  Add the melted butter and mix until the mixture is homogenous and clumpy.  Stir in the pecans and chips.  Set aside.

Cake:

3 medium very ripe bananas (340 g. net weight)

2 t. lemon juice

3 c. (360 g.) all-purpose flour

1 1/2 t. baking soda

3/4 t. salt

1 1/2 sticks (170 g.) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 c. (400 g.) sugar

3 eggs, room temperature

2 t. vanilla extract

1 1/2 c. whole milk plain yogurt

Butter a 13- by 9- by 2-inch cake pan.  Line the bottom of the pan with parchment and butter the parchment.  Flour the pan, tapping out the excess.  Set aside

Pass the bananas through a food mill, or purée in the food processor.  Stir in the lemon juice.  Set aside.  Combine the flour, soda and salt and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy.  

Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.  Fold in the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the yogurt in two additions.  Fold in the bananas. 

Spread the batter in the prepared pan.  Scatter the streusel evenly over all.  

Bake in a 325° oven until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean—about an hour.  Serves 15 to 18.

Note: Try to get real white chocolate chips for the streusel and not the inferior “white morsels” or “white baking chips.”  I’m partial to Baker’s White Chocolate Chips—which are reasonably priced and widely available.

(Cake portion of recipe adapted from Divas Can Cook)

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Roasted Banana & Chocolate Flake Ice Cream with Salted Butter Caramel Sauce

I admit that it might seem a bit odd to be posting a recipe for ice cream just as we are entering the cooler months of the year.  But I made this particular ice cream for a client a couple of weeks ago and it has been in my mind ever since.  They loved it...and making and serving it reminded me of how very much I like it.  Besides, to me ice cream is seasonless...I could probably enjoy a big bowl of it during a snow storm (in front of a roaring fire...wrapped in a big blanket...). 

I have adapted my recipe for Roasted Banana and Chocolate Flake Ice Cream from David Lebovitz's Roasted Banana Ice Cream recipe.  It is an unusual recipe in that it contains no eggs and no heavy cream.  While I tend to use less cream in my ice creams than most, I typically use a higher proportion of egg yolks.  The more yolks used, the smaller the ice crystals in the frozen custard.  This in turn gives a creamier result.   If anyone other than Lebovitz were the source of this recipe I wouldn't have even looked at it twice.  But since he is an ice cream maker par excellence, I decided to give it a try.  And I was not disappointed.  This simple...and very lean...recipe produces a smooth, creamy, rich tasting ice "cream" that will be satisfying to anyone who loves ice cream. I wish I knew why it worked...  I can only guess that it has something to do with the properties of a banana.

The changes I have made to the basic recipe are fairly minor...and purely a matter of personal preference.  I added a touch of honey...and a bit more milk.  I think honey (or any invert sugar) is always a good addition to an ice cream since it adds body and also contributes to a creamier texture.  I added more milk because without it the roasted banana base seemed excessively thick.  The biggest modification that I made was in the addition of some melted chocolate...which forms random chunks and flakes when drizzled and folded into the frozen base.  I suppose you could make a case that this is now an entirely different recipe...but it really isn't.  It's still all about the bananas.  And chocolate is wonderful with bananas.  When dispersed throughout the ice cream the chocolate bits add interest and variation without getting in the way of the great banana flavor.  

Whenever I make this ice cream, I almost always make Lebovitz's Salted Butter Caramel Sauce to serve with it.  You can of course make it and enjoy it all on its own, but there's something about the combination of bananas and chocolate and caramel that is pretty hard to resist.  The recipe for the caramel is from Lebovitz's newest cookbook, My Paris Kitchen.  It is without a doubt the best recipe for caramel sauce I have ever come across...I could devote an entire post to it.  It is liquid—but still has nice body—at room temperature...and it is soft, slightly stretchy and spoonable when cold.  Perfect. 

The only change I have made has to do with the method.  Lebovitz makes it using a wet caramel (the sugar is first moistened with water, then brought to a boil and cooked until it caramelizes).  I choose to make it using a dry caramel (the sugar is melted without any added water in a heavy saucepan set over high heat—it caramelizes as it melts).  As far as I am aware, both methods will yield the same end product, but a dry caramel is much faster to make than a wet caramel. For a very nice tutorial on making a dry caramel, check out Lebovitz's post on the subject.

I mentioned at the first that I had served this ice cream to some clients a couple of weeks ago.  When I made it for them, I served a scoop of ice cream on top of a thin circle of dense, fudge-y brownie....and drizzled the whole thing with the salted butter caramel sauce.  It was fantastic.  I used a 2/3 batch (so it would be thin) of one of my favorite brownie recipes...but any homemade (please don't serve this delicious homemade ice cream and sauce on a mix brownie....) fudge-y brownie should work, as long as it isn't too thick.

As delicious as this little Sundae was, it falls firmly into the arena of gilding the lily.  I have also served the ice cream and sauce with chocolate cookies.  But those too, are not really necessary...unless your goal is to emphasize the chocolate aspect of this dessert.  For myself, I find that the ice cream and sauce...all by themselves...are perfectly satisfying.  

Roasted Banana & Chocolate Flake Ice Cream

3 medium-sized ripe bananas (about 1 1/4 lb.), peeled
1/3 c. light brown sugar
1 T. butter (salted or unsalted), cut into small pieces
2 c. whole milk, divided
2 T. granulated sugar
2 T. honey
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1 1/2 t. lemon juice
1/4 t. coarse salt
2 1/2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted

Preheat oven to 400° F. Slice the bananas into half inch pieces and toss them with the brown sugar and butter in a 2-quart baking dish.

Bake, stirring once or twice (being careful to scrape down any caramelized sugars on the sides that threaten to burn), until the bananas are browned and cooked through and the liquid is thick and syrupy—about 35 to 40 minutes.

Scrape the bananas and the syrup into the blender. Add 1 1/2 cups of the milk (splashing some of it into the baking dish first to rinse out any of the syrup that remains), granulated sugar, honey, vanilla, lemon juice and salt, and purée until smooth. Transfer to a bowl. Add the remaining half cup of milk to the blender and run briefly to thin any of the banana mixture that remains. Add this to the rest of the mix in the bowl and whisk until homogenous.

Chill the mixture for at least 8 hour (or overnight) in the refrigerator. Freeze the ice cream in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions. (If the chilled mixture is too thick to pour into your machine, whisk it to thin it out.)

How you add the chocolate flakes will depend on your style of ice cream maker. The basic idea is to drizzle the chocolate into the finished, softly set ice cream a bit at a time and fold it in before drizzling in some more and folding again. The process is repeated until all the chocolate has been added.

The chocolate freezes almost immediately upon coming into contact with the soft ice cream and the folding process breaks the drizzles up into chips. I have a hand-crank, chilled canister-type maker, so to add the chocolate, I remove the paddle from the ice cream and then add the chocolate using the process described above while the ice cream was still in its chilled canister. I then transfer the finished ice cream to a chilled container for the freezer. (If you prefer, you may layer the chocolate into the ice cream as you transfer it into another container. Simply add a thin layer of ice cream, drizzle this layer with chocolate, add another layer of ice cream and drizzle in more chocolate...continue, repeating these two layers until all the ice cream and chocolate have been transferred to the container.) Makes a scant quart of ice cream

(Recipe adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz).

Printable Recipe

Salted Butter Caramel Sauce 

1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
6 T. salted butter (or use unsalted plus 1/4 t. kosher salt), cubed
1/2 c. heavy cream, room temperature
Sea salt or kosher salt (optional)

Spread the sugar in a deep saucepan. Place the pan over medium-high to high heat. Watch carefully—the sugar will immediately turn to caramel as it melts. Shake the pan occasionally to prevent the melted sugar from burning and to expose more dry sugar to the heat.

If the sugar begins to smoke, lower the heat a bit. Eventually there will be a few hard lumps of sugar floating in liquid caramel.

Remove from the heat and stir until all the lumps are dissolved and the caramel is a clear golden amber. Briefly return the pan to the heat to dissolve any stubborn lumps and, if necessary to deepen the color a bit. The final caramel should be a deep amber and should just be beginning to smoke.

Remove the pan from the heat and carefully drop in the cubes of butter (along with 1/4 t. of kosher salt if using unsalted butter).

Stir the butter in with a whisk until it’s completely melted, then gradually whisk in the cream, stirring until the sauce is smooth. If there are stubborn bits of caramel stuck to the bottom, loosen them with a wooden spoon, and stir them in. If they refuse to melt, rewarm the sauce over low heat, which should do the trick.

Once the sauce is cool enough to taste, you may want to add a bit of salt. (I like to add about 1/4 to 3/8 t. kosher salt.) The sauce will keep for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator and can be reheated before serving. If cooled and rewarmed, it may need to be thinned with a bit of cream or milk. Makes 1 1/3 cups sauce.

(Recipe adapted from My Paris Kitchen: Recipes & Stories, by David Lebovitz)

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Banana Chocolate Walnut "Whoopie Pies"



I enjoyed several days this past week working with a good friend in her pastry shop. Among the many things we made were whoopie pies....red velvet and pumpkin spice. I had of course heard of whoopie pies...and seen pictures...but I have to admit I had never eaten one (much less made one). Now I have done both...and I came away inspired. The original version of a whoopie pie is chocolate with a marshmallow-like filling. But they can obviously be just about any flavor as long as they include round, cakey cookies and a fluffy filling.

The whoopie pies that we made were minis, but the originals are very large (and rich)....sort of a two-fisted type of dessert. I have always thought of them as kid food. A platter of them conjures up images of sticky, crumb-covered fingers and matching frosting-smeared cheeks. But now, having eaten them, I think they would make great picnic—or tailgating—fare for adults. They are cake and frosting without the need of a fork.

At the end of my busy week of baking I came face to face with an overripe banana taking up space on my kitchen counter. I had been aware of its presence for several days and had pretty much decided that when I had time I was going to do what I almost always do when I find myself with only one overripe banana....make a batch of a favorite cookie: Banana Walnut Chocolate Chunk cookies. As I mentioned when I posted the recipe a couple of years ago, one of the things I like about these cookies is their old-fashioned cake-like quality. After a week that included whoopie pies, I realized as I looked at my banana that I had the makings of a Banana Walnut Whoopie Pie. I have never seen a recipe for whoopie pies made with chunky cookies...so it's possible I have committed whoopie pie sacrilege... But I'm not too concerned. They were delicious.

Banana Chocolate Walnut Whoopie Pies

Banana Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Cream Cheese Filling

Make and bake the cookies as directed. If you like, chill the dough for an hour before baking—this will give the cookies a shape that is a bit more mounded. You should have 36 cookies.

Make the frosting as directed (or substitute your favorite cream cheese or plain vanilla frosting).

Pair up the cookies so that the halves of each sandwich will be the same size.  Pipe (or spoon) about an ounce (about two tablespoons) of frosting in the center of the bottom side of 18 of the cookies.

Place another cookie on top of the frosting and gently press, forcing the frosting to flatten out and barely peek out from between the two cookies.

Makes 18 whoopie pies.

Banana Chocolate Walnut Cake

It has been an unusually busy week (and it isn't over yet), so most of my cooking at home has been just enough to put something nourishing on the table.  Unfortunately there hasn't been enough time to blog about any of it. Instead, I thought I would end September with something short and sweet by sharing a recipe from an old issue of Gourmet—my favorite banana cake.

I mentioned once that in my house we almost never have more than one banana reach a state of ripeness appropriate for baked goods. This means that if I want a banana cake or a batch of banana bread I have to plan a few days ahead so I can purchase the necessary bananas and then allow them to ripen. But for some reason a week or two ago, three bananas hung around long enough to become well-speckled. Suddenly, there they were. I seized the moment and made this cake.  I'm so glad that I did, because now, even during a very busy week, I have something in my freezer to help start my day on a happy note. 

Banana Chocolate Walnut Cake

2 1/4 (9 oz.) cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter, softened, plus 2 tablespoons, melted and cooled
1 cup sugar, divided
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/4 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 medium)--see note
2/3 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips (4-oz)
1 cup walnuts (3 oz), toasted, cooled, and coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch square cake pan; set aside.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.  Cream the butter (1 stick) and 3/4 cup sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in eggs 1 at a time until blended. Combine the bananas, yogurt, and vanilla and add to the creamed mixture alternately with the flour mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

Toss together chocolate, nuts, cinnamon, melted butter, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a small bowl. Spread half of banana batter in cake pan and sprinkle with half of chocolate mixture.

Spread remaining batter evenly over filling and sprinkle remaining chocolate mixture on top.  

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack 30 minutes, then turn out onto rack and cool completely, right side up.

Recipe adapted from Gourmet Magazine February 2008

Note:  Do not bother making this cake unless you have very ripe bananas...the skins should be well-spotted and the flesh very soft.  If the bananas are just a bit over-ripe the cake will not seem very sweet and will also have a slightly tough texture. 

Printable Version

Banana-Walnut Chocolate-Chunk Cookies

Most of the recipes that I post are either recipes that I have developed or recipes that I have altered in some way. It is pretty rare for me, or for any professional or experienced cook I suppose, to leave a recipe unchanged. We just can't help ourselves. But today's cookie recipe is one that I am passing on unchanged. I like it just the way it is. It is destined to become a favorite "cookie jar" cookie at my house (my cookie jar being a Tupperware container that lives in the freezer).

These cookies remind me of the old-fashioned drop cookies of my childhood—Betty Crocker's Old Time Cinnamon Jumbles, Carrot Cookies with orange frosting, and my favorite, a soft chocolate cookie with raisins and chocolate icing that my Grandmother used to make (I don't have any idea what it was called). Soft and cake-like, with a domed, imperfect shape, these kinds of cookies seem to have fallen out of favor. This is possibly because of the supremacy of the chocolate chip cookie and it's relatives, or the fact that people really don't bake from scratch very much (these cookies have a definite homemade look about them). Also, unless you are keeping them in the freezer, they have a tendency to go stale quickly. Whatever the reason, you don't see them very often anymore so I was very pleased to come across this type of cookie in Martha Stewart's Cookies.

My mother made a Banana-Oatmeal cookie that was very similar to this one when I was a kid. Once, while I was in college, she sent a box of them to me in a care package. Because they do go stale quickly, she went to the trouble of wrapping each cookie individually—a special treat and gesture that has remained in my memory. You might wonder why I am now making the "new" version. Well, Martha's version has chocolate and walnuts instead of raisins and spices, so I prefer her version (sorry Mom).

I took a few of these cookies with me on my trip to Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago. They were perfect road trip fare—sweet, substantial and full of good things (walnuts, oatmeal, whole wheat flour, bananas), making for a sustaining sort of snack. I think they would make an excellent "on the go" breakfast, too. In general, I think desserts (cookies, fruit pies and tarts, certain kinds of cake...) make pretty good breakfast food. But even for those who don't share my opinion, I think these cookies would pass for an acceptable breakfast—certainly better for you than the processed breakfast foods that many people eat.

The main reason that I first tried these cookies was that I came across the recipe when I had one over-ripe banana sitting on my kitchen counter. It always seems to be this way—only one banana hangs around long enough to become ripe enough for baking...no matter how many we buy. I love banana baked goods, but most banana bread, cake and muffin recipes call for more than one banana. I realize I could freeze these singleton bananas and then bake when I have a collection of them—and I do occasionally freeze some, but for some reason this isn't something I'm inclined to do (I guess I would rather save room in my freezer for finished cookies).  Anyway, this cookie recipe only calls for one banana, and since it has the taste and texture of a banana cake, my problem is solved. 


Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1 c. all-purpose flour (4 1/4 oz.)
1/2 c. whole wheat flour (2 1/8 oz.)—I used white whole wheat
1 t. kosher salt
1/2 t. baking soda
3/4 c. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 c. mashed ripe banana (about 1 large)
1 c. old fashioned rolled oats
8 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. coarsely chopped walnuts (2 oz.), toasted

Whisk together the flours, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg and then the vanilla. Stir in the banana. Add the flour and mix until almost completely incorporated. Stir in the oats, chocolate and nuts.

Using a 1 1/2-inch cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart.

Bake the cookies in a 375° oven, rotating the cookie sheet halfway through, until golden brown and just set—11 to 13 minutes. Let cool on the sheets for 5 minutes.

Transfer the cookies to wire racks; let cool completely. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 2 days. (The cookies may also be frozen.)  Makes 3 dozen medium-sized cookies.

(Recipe from Martha Stewart's Cookies)

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