Rescuing Bananas

Deuteronomy 8:3 "He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD."

The other day I noticed that some bananas had been brought in from the grocery store and were misplaced. So by the time I spotted them they were quite ripe. Friday I peeled them and smashed them and them put them covered into the refrigerator. By Sunday I got around to them. Getting on the internet in search for a recipe (which is crazy for a person with as many baking books as I have!) and found a lovely recipe for Banana Bread on Nigella Lawson's site. It is from How To Be A Domestic Goddess, a book I own.

But just as I was starting the baking process, daughter #4 called up and said she'd like to stop by. I was delighted to see her, but I don't follow directions as well when I'm visiting. So it didn't take long before I made a mistake, but I'm quite sure that my mistake will not be thought bad by anyone. Instead of having banana bread, as the recipe calls it, I have banana cake. The first part of the recipe called for soaking the sultanas for an hour in the rum. Completely missed that part. Not wanting to waste the fair bit of rum I had already measured out, I just poured it into the batter, thus producing a nice light cake-like banana bread.

BANANA RUM CAKE

100g sultanas
75ml dark rum
175g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
half teaspoon baking soda
half teaspoon salt
125g unsalted butter, melted
150g sugar
2 large eggs
4 small, very ripe bananas (about 340g weighed without skin), mashed
60g chopped pecans

2 small bundt pans, buttered and floured

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and get started on the rest, getting the pans ready first.

Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium-sized bowl and, using your hands or a wooden spoon, combine well. In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended.

Beat in the smashed bananas, then the eggs one at a time. Then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the pecans, sultanas and rum. Add the flour mixture and stir well, but not furiously.

Spoon into the bundt pans and bake in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes. When they're ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish.

Yield: 2 small bundt cakes, or 1 large bundt cake

The cakes turned out great. They really did become cakes instead of a bread. I added more banana than the bread called for (40 grams more), I think my eggs were bigger, and then there's the quarter cup of rum. I always use a scale when baking, so that made following the British directions easy.