Christmas season is perfect for making anything festive. That’s exactly what I did with this naked banana cake.
This recipe is perfect for if you want to use up those overripe bananas in your fruit basket. You can spice up the cake, or leave it plain with the natural ripe banana flavour only. I used a homemade boozy sweet rich frosting to compliment the plain banana cake. Isn’t that just very Christmasy?
Also check: Moist Chocolate & Banana Cake
Also, used some Gin flavoured chocolates, luxury mixed dried fruits and sugar coated dried mango strips cut into smaller pieces to decorated the cake.
This naked banana cake was filled with a chocolate liquor buttercream creme filling. and some ripe banana pieces and luxury mixed dried fruits. You can use any other type of frosting or filling too, just DIY it to make it all festive and perfect for your tastebuds to enjoy some festive cheer.
This cake is like banana bread but without chocolate chips or even some spices like cinnamon or mixed spice. It’s just as simple as simple can get but you can always jazz it up and make it festive.
The cake batter is a smooth batter with lumps of roughly mashed ripe bananas. Yum, isn’t it?
Put on some Christmas carols, wear your festive jumpers or robes, create the mood with some holiday candles and let’s start baking!!
FEW BAKING TIPS TO REMEMBER:
- Always measure your ingredients.
- Sift the flour and baking powder to remove any lumps and also to aerate the flour mixture.
- Always preheat your oven.
- Line the baking tin and set aside.
- Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature unless mentioned otherwise.
- Keep all the ingredients measured and ready to go.
- Feel your heart with joy because baking during Christmas is very pleasing and therapeutic.
- Make sure to add the most important ingredient to whatever you bake- LOVE.
THE RECIPE:
Naked Banana Cake with festive cheer
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
- 100 g Unsalted baking butter spreadable
- 100 g Caster Sugar
- 75 g Dark brown cane sugar
- 2 nos Eggs medium sized
- 2 nos Ripe Bananas mashed (about 200gms)
- 225 g Self-raising flour sifted
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
FOR THE LIQUOR BUTTERCREAM CREME FROSTING
- 100 g Unsalted baking butter spreadable
- 50 g Icing sugar sifted
- 120 ml Thick Double Cream
- 30 ml Liquor I used some chocolate flavoured liquor from Portugal.
Instructions
CAKE
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4. Prep and line a 8 inch baking tin and set aside.
- Measure all the ingredients and keep them ready.
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Once pale and the sugar has dissolved, add each egg gradually with whisking in between.
- Next add in the roughly mashed bananas and fold it in gently.
- Finally fold in the flour and baking powder and combine well until you get a smooth and light cake batter.
- Pour the batter into the cake tin and level it. Bake for about 45-50mins until done.
- Take the cake out of the oven and leave it to cool before turning it onto a cooling rack.
- Once cooled slice the cake base in the middle to get two equal cake bases. Drizzle with some sugar syrup or liquor like I did.
Liquor Buttercream Creme frosting
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Add the thick double cream and whisk until it forms soft peaks.
- Add the liquor and whisk further until you achieve stiff peaks.
- Refrigerate and use for frosting and filling the cake.
Other things used to decorate the cake
- Decorate the cake with some liquor flavoured/filled chocolates. I used Gin filled chocolates.
- I also used a ripe banana and some luxury mixed dried fruits to decorate the cake.
ASSEMBLING THE CAKE
- Soak the cake bases with a light sugar syrup or with the same liquor as the frosting.
- Decorate half the cake as shown in the picture. I used ripe banana pieces at the circumference of the cake and the centre. Filled the rest with dried fruits. Topped all this with some buttercream. Once properly spread and levelled place the top layer of the cake and cover it with the leftover buttercream. Decorate it however you like.
Notes
- You can bake the same cake batter in a sandwich cake tin by putting equal halves of the batter in each tin.
- Use 175g soft light brown sugar instead of caster sugar and soft dark brown cane sugar for the batter.
- You can use extra ripe bananas instead of just two.
- Do not over whisk the buttercream creme frosting.
- You can use any liquor of choice or maybe even some spiced rum to make it more festive.
- Skip the alcohol altogether if you prefer it that way.
- Decorate the cake with whatever you prefer and make it festive. Go all out and DIY it according to your preference. The more, the merrier.
- Also, add extra spices like cinnamon to the cake batter if you prefer that.
If you end up making the recipe, do not forget to tag me in a post on Instagram using the hashtag #deliciouscravingsatvaniaskitchen. Also, follow me there to enjoy some festive reels. Love making those at the moment.
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Stay tuned for some new recipes coming up before Christmas Day!!
See you soon xx