Recipe: Roasted Banana Cake

Bananas figure heavily into my baking routine. And, while both my sons did celebrate each of their first birthdays with festive, frosting-swathed banana cakes, most of my banana baked goods come in rustic form.

I bake banana bread periodically, usually bulked up with whole wheat flour and oats, oftentimes with a few spoonfuls of yogurt mixed in, sometimes spiced, most often no. They are tweedy loaves that behave nicely on the counter under a dome and take well to doorstopper slices for lunchboxes, too.

These breads suit the day to day, yet now and there is a need for fanfare, even if only faint – say the completion of a school project, or cleaned bedrooms, or that it's a Tuesday. This cake uses the base recipe of my faithful banana bread, but takes a few lateral moves that change the feeling entirely.

Swapping in sour cream for the leaner yogurt adds richness. Roasting the bananas concentrates their flavour, the toffee-like notes of which get a bump from brown sugar. A rumpled carapace of scrunched walnuts and chocolate tops all.

For that chocolate, I go dark and bar, not chips. Since not stabilized, such chocolate is free to slouch into the gaps between the nuts. By ground coffee, I mean just that, not the powdered form, which doesn't have the flinty edge crushed beans do. That combination of coffee, chocolate, and walnut is one for the ages, and the lulling sweetness of banana provides the ideal foundation.

I am fond of this cake when it's quite tall and proud, so use a high-sided cake pan to achieve the effect (a Charlotte mold would also be fitting). If you don't have a similar pan, the batter can be baked in a Pullman pan, or 9x2-inch round, adjusting the baking times as needed.

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