Recipes and memories - 2.1

*Please check previous blog post for reference*

Easy banana sheet cake

Ingredients

A. Wet mix

• 4 large eggs (about 60g each)
• 5 ripe bananas (IIRC it should be medium sized around 115g each?)
• 3/4 cup of vegetable oil (we used sunflower at home)

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B. Dry mix:

• 2 cups of granulated sugar (take 1/2 off if you want it less sweet. I found out it’s better like this but I always write down the original recipe.)
• 2 cups of breadcrumbs (homemade medium fine, check note below*)
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder (add more to your liking or add extra powdered spices like cardamom, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, etc)

• Powdered sugar and cinnamon powder for dusting.

*Note for homemade breadcrumbs: cut stale bread into small slices and place it on a pan in the pre-heated oven at 160°C until the edges start to turn slightly blonde. Take it off and let it cool and dry in the pan. It should have the texture of a dry rusk toast. You can break it by smashing inside a ziplock bag but it’s easier to process bit by bit in a food processor or powerful blender. To avoid big chunks, sieve through a wide mesh strainer. Store in a airtight container. I sincerely don’t know how long it lasts. We used fluffy white baguettes for this so I don’t know if any other kind of bread would work out or even if commercially available breadcrumbs would work well in this recipe.
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Instructions

1. Mix B ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Blend A ingredients in a blender until smooth.
3. Add A to B in the bowl and mix throughly with a spatula. A bamboo or wooden spoon with a hole in the middle works out great for this.
4. Line up a large pan with parchment paper, or lightly oil and dust flour on the bottom and sides. I believe we used a 20cm by 30cm pan (maybe 4-5cm tall?) but I’m unsure about it. Mom called that the rectangular baking pan n°3.
5. Pour the batter evenly in the pan. Go on a zigzag movement from one corner to another. If you pour it all from the middle, the batter won’t slide evenly to the sides and you’ll end up with a volcano cake.
6. Pre heat oven at 180°C and bake around 35 minutes. It’s done if you poke the middle of the cake with a toothpick and it comes out clean (no wet batter attached to it). Don’t poke the cake too soon or keep opening the oven since that might affect how your cake rises. Be patient and wait until it has risen well and the top is slightly golden to test it.
7. Wait until it cools down to dust sugar and cinnamon on top with a fine mesh sieve. You can skip this out too. Enjoy it with black coffee or black tea since it’s very sweet.

This cake is fairly big so make sure you have someone to share with if you’re making it. It used to last for 2 days (as a breakfast and afternoon coffee treat) for 6 people. We didn’t even bother taking it off the pan. I usually just cut it up and let it sit on the stovetop on the kitchen. Whoever passed by could grab a square of cake anytime. It’s been more than 5 years since I baked this so I hope the recipe still works out as I remember it. I guess nuts go well with this. I don’t recommend chocolate because it’s already super sweet. ​