I think you all know by now that I cannot bake to save my life. You are either a good cook or a good baker and I have decided to accept that phrase and stick to my side of the fence. A few months ago, I had a student Deola who came for Cooking classes. She is a whiz at baking and decorating and I was practically begging her to either start a baking blog or bake for profit, but she is a mum with a toddler plus a resident doctor in training, so I can understand that she doesn’t have the time. It is not easy to walk away from medical training, although I did and it was the scariest decision of my life, which turned out to be one of the best.
On the day of her last class she said Dunni, I will prove to you, that you too can bake. This is a simple recipe even a child can follow. I looked at her and laughed. I said Deola, trust me, the gods of baking don’t like me at all. Even when I plan to follow a recipe to the letter, the cooking brain part of me feels smart with itself and tries to tweak it. The result = disaster. There must be some sneaky little devil (according to cartoons), which must be sitting atop my head taunting me to not follow the recipe, or even when I do follow the recipe, I think my measurements are always off. Anyways, Deola was kind enough to bring along all the ingredients for the cake including her hand mixer. I watched her make the cake and it was so easy and effortless. I can imagine how it must have felt to her watching me cook. All the things I was discounting as easy and she was disagreeing with me, now the tables had turned. It was a fantastic experience to have two people in one kitchen at opposite ends of the food making scale. A Cook and a Baker. In a few short minutes, she had made the batter and the cake was in the oven. I was just staring at her in amazement. The result was soooooo good, I eat almost half before she left. Did I mention that she also baked me a Lemon Madeira cake? For the next 3 days, all I ate was cake.
Then she said to me, I want you to re-create this yourself one day and to encourage you, I am going to be leaving behind all my tools plus her hand mixer. I have a food processor, but it is such an enormous thing to bring out and clean. She must have sensed it because she said, here’s my hand mixer now you have no excuse. Weeks after, whilst looking for something in the store, I came across her hand mixer and I decided to go buy bananas and wait for it to rotten. Again, the little red devil told me to add milk (instead of orange juice) and peanut butter. I don’t know why I deliberately sabotage my baking. Anyways, the taste was GREAT. The texture not as good as hers. I will be leaving out the milk and peanut butter next time or find a way to incorporate the peanut butter at least and still get the texture that she did, because the peanut butter was absolutely gorgeous in the cake. Hey, bananas and peanut butter are a match made in heaven. The recipe is Dan Lepard’s. Deola’s Baking Hero.
You will need
200g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
250g plain flour
4 medium eggs
Finely grated zest of an orange and 15ml juice
200g well-mashed banana – I used 2
3 tsp baking powder
Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: if you don’t have the standard baking cups but you do have a weighing scale, click on this link (HERE) to help you work out the grams conversion of all the ingredients listed. Once you are on the site, click on the ingredient you want to convert. e.g. flour, sugar, butter etc
How To
You will need 2 blackened bananas. See below
1. Melt the butter in the microwave. This is what makes this recipe sooooo simple and very quick.
2. Mash the bananas to a pulp with a fork 
3. Add the melted butter to the sugar in a pot or mixing bowl and whisk gently till the sugar combines well with the butter.
4. Mix in 100g grams of the flour and whisk until smooth
5. Then add one egg and whisk properly till it combines before you add the next. To save me from myself, I whisked each egg in a separate bowl each time before adding to the batter and then gently combined it. Do the same for the remaining 3.
6. Then add the rest of the ingredients, starting with the mashed banana, orange juice and zest, then sift in the rest of the flour and baking powder. Ignore the pictures below – I used ground nutmeg instead of the zest of an orange, but I am adding the picture to remind you of what to do.
do not use milk please – use orange juice. This picture is just to serve as a reminder of the steps.
here is where I sneakily added peanut butter. hehehehehe. Take your chances if you may.
7. Combine all the ingredients gently, and your batter should look like this. The entire time this was made by hand in a few minutes.
8. Line a bread pan – silicone or metal, whichever you have
pour in the batter carefully and bake at 160C (140C fan-assisted)/320F/gas mark 2½ for a little over an hour.
me being mischievous again, I decided to sprinkle a little brown sugar over the top. This one I got right, I must confess. It gave it a delicious crunch.
When a skewer pulls out with only a few crumbs sticking to it, it’s done.
Voila!!!!! my banana bread/cake.
I took out a few slices and it disappeared in seconds. The texture was a little more crumbly than I expected, but who cares, I loved it. Yes it was likely the milk and peanut butter but I have learnt my lesson now.
I baked this at night, I abandoned my dinner and descended on it with Chocolate chip ice cream Deeeeeeeelicious.
Bake this for Christmas and watch your guests come back with empty plates. This is so easy, in under 20minutes or even less you have the batter in the oven. The easiest cake you will ever make. Trust me.
Terry, our resident So You Think You Can Cook baker has posted a recipe for home-made bread. Many people have tried it out with amazing results, with lots swearing never to buy bread again. I have ordered a metal bread pan and I will try it out myself too. I promise to pinch myself hard if the thought of tweaking his recipe ever comes to mind. That little red devil will not succeed this time around. Hehehehehehe
Doonz gurrrrrrlll! You are truly my sister! I too am generally baking impaired but when I make banana bread people guzzle it as if their life depends on! Hehehehe! And you’re right it is dead easy to throw together. And like you I love to serve it with ice cream (homemade of course :-). ) Well done sis! As for this Terry guy how intimidating is he! Hia! Will gingerly try the bread recipe……with fear and trepidation………
My dear, that baking of a thing, i am just tired. I hope to improve next year and banana bread is a good place to start. So Yummy. Terry is really intimidating us o. hehehe
I have never baked anything in my life!! i’d rather spend money on a gourmet cake than attempt to bake one…totally a cook not a baker…maybe it’s all the measuring or cleaning up of greasy crockery that puts me off or the fact that I’m not that into cakes…but you have done it again! Totally inspired to try this…looks easy enough and unlike you I like to follow instructions well well!! Lol…
Going to get ingredients tmr and I promise to bake this for Christmas…watch this space for follow ups….
Your attention to detail is awesome…God bless you as you share your skills and gifts with us o!
Big hugs dear. We cooks must stick together. Looool. This is easy, even for me and because you follow instructions, yours will turn out perfect. Please let me know how it turns out. Thank you for the compliments and Amen to your prayer
Just finished baking the Banaba bread…..not perfect but not bad still delish…thanks for sharing
Forgot to mention I didn’t have orange juice so I used milk and nutmeg
I hope you enjoyed it. Milk really does something to that recipe, I hope you try it with orange juice next time. Well done
Always inspired by your creativity , humbleness and passion you are truly adunni, you are worth having indeed
Aaaaaaaaaw, you are going to make me cry now Bunmi. Thank you so much and Happy Holidays
Ok, my banana bread is in the oven. It better turn out right, oh! I am even more baking impaired than you are. Used Deola’s recipe, but I had no orange zest, so I replaced it with lemon zest, had no orange juice, so I skipped that. Of course, like you, I am unable to leave a recipe as is, so I added some coconut flakes and vanilla essence. I almost put in some cinnamon, but I was able to rein myself it. We’ll see how it turns out.
Tried Terry’s original wonder bread yesterday. It is all gone now.
Ps: I have been cyber stalking you here and on “so you think you can cook”, have made your buka stew (which was fantabulous, by the way). Just so you know, there are many more people out here who use your recipes and love you, we are just shy non commenting folks. Mentioned your name at church and some random babe started testifying about your buka stew and meat pie. Now you know.
Okay, epistle over.
LOL @you were able to rein yourself in. I have no such strength, i would have added that cinnamon. How did the texture turn out without orange juice? Thank you so much for the compliments. Even if you don’t comment, I am pleased to know I made a difference to your kitchen.
The texture was great. I figured 15ml was not a deal breaker.
Great. Thanks
LOL! Ej I couldn’t help commenting on reining yourself in! This cooking business na wah! Sometimes when I am in the kitchen its as if I have unleashed myself! Great recipe I will try it soon!
Lol. Tell me about it. Please try it and let me know how it turns out
Oh, my goodness!! It tastes just like the banana cake my mama made, and believe me, that is high praise. Yum, yum, yum. Thanks for the recipe.
By the way, I too added peanut butter, a teaspoon and half. It does add a little umph!
Yaaaaaay. Fantastic to read that someone has tried this so soon. I will tell Deola. She raves about Dan Lepard’s recipes. Happy to read you tweaked with peanut butter too. That taste is just amazing.
Chei dooney mo, I have so missed you. I have actually been checking like once in a while but haven’t felt like cooking for sometime, coupled with the fact say na my salary u dey follow me spend and my eaters no cm dey. Anyways I once made banana bread abi na cake and it was painfully delicious although, I followed chef freg”s recipe and that of inspired taste.net. By the way I made ofeonugbu and guess what we all slept in the toilet and once mum saw ow we kept visiting the loo,she refused to eat. Her experience with etidot must have been pretty scary
*now I know I am so gross*.
Anyways I already came up with a menu for Xmas from your blog,and now that I got my lumia, my camera will be put to good use.
Thanks a lot for being part of my year and for inspiring me to try new things. Merry Xmas dear and do say hello to mama too. Cheers
Aaaaaaaawm thanks a lot Yel. Thank you too for being part of my year and for leaving smile inducing and inspiring comments. Merry Xmas to you and yours. Any reasons why the Ofe Onugbu caused such drama? This is the first time i am reading about an experience like that.
Woooow the dooney who takes the teachers recipe and perfects it weldone you are just too smart and good.
Aaaaaw, bless you David. Thanks
Hi Dunni, thanks soo much for sharing this recipe. I’m definitely gonna try it soon. Btw, i couldn’t find the link to the bread recipe by Terry. Please direct me to where I can find this. Once again thanks for inspiring me to be creative with cooking. All the very best in the coming year!
Hi Sops, the recipe for Terry’s bread is on the So You Think You Can Cook Facebook Page. You need to be a member to have access to it
Hey girl, you can actually substitute honey for sugar and olive oil for butter, for those who wish to address dietary or weight concerns. I do that for my banana bread and people love it!
Lovely health tips Ifegs. Thanks
Hi dooney, pls from d picture I can Ơ̴̴̴̴͡.̮Ơ̴͡ that it is plantain and not banana or I’m I seeing double? I have done banana cake too b4 and it finished in two hours I used my own recipee tho! Weldone sis.pls hw can I do home made ice cream like d one in the pic above thanks!
They are bananas, trust me. I have a recipe for zobo and pineapple ice cream on the blog. Just type it into the search bar
Hi Dooney I was here looking for moi-moi recipe and stumbled on the banana cake. so I decided to try it since i had a bunch of overripe banana on the way to the thrash. will send pics when its out in the next 1hr. I always use your meat-pie dough recipe and it always comes out good.. Now am off to try Terry’s bread recipe ;). Fingers crossed. Thanks
Thanks for the comment, I hope your banana cake turns out great. Terry’s bread, fingers crossed for you too.
My Dooneyyyyooooooooo wonder woman! Ok, every time I bake banana bread the taste is just off for me. As a result, I swore off baking it at least I thought until I saw YOURS. Soooo, I will be trying my hands on this recipe soon & will post it on SYTYCC. I see you added peanut butter, how much and how was the taste. Also, I have some white chocolate I am thinking about adding, what do you think?
I saw a recipe on joyofbaking & she used white chocolate in her banana muffin (I haven’t tried it though). I love u Dooney! Gosh I wish you where in the states so I can come & take some classes hehehehe.
Mary Eze
Mary it is always lovely to hear from you. Chocolate introduces moisture and more silkiness to cake, so i am not really sure how it will turn out. You know I am not a baker, so I can’t give you an authoritative response. I added 1 tablespoon of peanut butter. Please try it out and post it. Hopefully when Dooney’s Kitchen becomes bigger, there will be some american involvement. 2014 brings with it lots of possibilities and hope, so never say never. Thanks again for stopping by. I can’t wait to see your result
One more question. I have powdered cane sugar. Can I use it instead of the caster sugar? I think they are about the same thing.
Yeah, it will work. Even honey will work too, if you want a healthier option
Thank you Dooney!
I don’t have caster sugar. Can I use regular sugar?
Yes. To make caster sugar from regular sugar, just blend it in a mill.
Thnks dooney for dis recipe sure A̶̲̥̅♏ gonna try dis, I’ve bn off baking for long I pray I get it right. Some of Tђξ ingredients U̶̲̥̅̊ mentioned like grated Zest n castor sugar I hop they are availabe in nigeria. I will surely let U̶̲̥̅̊ know wen I try it. U̶̲̥̅̊ ve really inspired ♍Ɛ to dust M̶̲̥̅̊y̶̲̥̅̊ oven n put it to work. Terry’s bread will come next. God bless U̶̲̥̅̊ load
You are welcome. Please let me know how it turns out. I love seeing pictures. All the best
Hi Dooney, I just finish baking M̶̲̥̅̊y̶̲̥̅̊ banana Cake, NNE Tђξ cake na BOMB! It i̶̲̥̅̊s̶̲̥̅̊ delicious M̶̲̥̅̊y̶̲̥̅̊ kids n hubby started eating it from Tђξ oven ℓ☺ℓ, I gave M̶̲̥̅̊y̶̲̥̅̊ neighbour some of and guess what! Tђξ husband sent her back to come and learn becos na his everyday breakfast. Feeling like a Queen right now! I followed Tђξ procedure to Tђξ latta just dat Tђξ Zest of a thing I can’t see it anywhere so I added little nutmeg. I wanted to post Tђξ pict but I don’t knw how but A̶̲̥̅♏ gonna post it to SYTYCC.Thnks a million. Kisses
I saw your pictures and was so proud of you. Well done. To get zest, just lightly grate an orange with the skin on. Gently grate it, and you have zest
this looks like plantain and not banana…..
can either banana or plantain be used for this
It is a close shot. i assure you they are bananas and not plantains
Emmm, dooney I want to try this banana cake but my bananas are not blackened like the ones you’ve got. Will that alter the result?
Yes it will affect the taste, as blackened bananas are much sweeter. The natural sugars break down when they blacken. I advise you should wait a few days to really enjoy the cake
Perhaps you can try it with peanut Butter icecream next time if putting it in d batter doesn’t work . One lady on YouTube melted butter and mixed with maple syrup and drizzled on top, perhaps you can melt some with peanut butter and drizzle on top too.
Oooooooh, lovely tip. Thanks
I made this cake yesterday for my church choir, it went down really well! Thanks so much.I must confess it was veryyyyyy easy!! Xxxx
Aaaaw, lovely to hear. Especially the easy part