Banana cake with a nutella twist

I love bananas and I love Nutella and combining the two leads to sheer magic. While it is very difficult to imagine improving on Nutella, when you combine it with fresh cream, butter and icing sugar, and then spread this frosting atop a moist cake chock full of bananas and walnuts, the blend of flavours is simply mouth-watering.

For UAE National Day last Friday, December 2, I was invited to a barbeque hosted by a friend. I knew I wanted to bake a cake for the occasion but couldn’t decide which kind until I opened the freezer to find a handful of frozen brown bananas just waiting to be baked to perfection.

Banana cake tastes best when the bananas used in the recipe are really ripe: the browner the better. Whenever I have browning bananas left over that are too ripe to eat, I freeze them and then take them out to thaw for special occasions when a slice of banana-walnut cake is sure to please my guests, family, friends, colleagues—or sometimes just for me.

Banana-walnut cake

½ cup butter or margarine

¾ cup sugar

2 cups flour

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4-5 medium-sized, very ripe bananas

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon boiling water

½ cup chopped walnuts

Nutella butter-cream frosting

1 tablespoon butter

2 cups of icing sugar

2-3 tablespoons of fresh cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup of nutella

Directions for cake:

Pre-heat oven at 175 degrees Celsius. Grease bundt cake pan with butter so the cake doesn’t stick.

Mix together flour, baking powder and baking soda in a small bowl, and set aside. Break two eggs into a small bowl and using a fork, whip with vanilla extract.  

In a large bowl, mix together butter and sugar until mixture is smooth. Fold in egg mixture and beat together until texture of the batter is light and smooth. Mix in milk and boiling water. Add bananas and combine until they are well pressed. Add the flour mixture and blend well. Mix in chopped walnuts.

Place the batter in the bundt cake pan and bake until a fork pressed in the centre of the cake comes out clean (for me it takes about 45 minutes).

Directions for icing:

Mix together margarine and icing sugar until well combined, then add vanilla and mix in fresh cream one spoon at a time until the texture of the icing is thick and creamy. Add nutella and mix well, adding more fresh cream and icing sugar if necessary to achieve a thick, smooth consistency.

Enjoy!