CHOCOLATE BANANA CAKE

Choc chips in the mix

Oh, bananas (especially Tesco ones) why do you go rotten in jig time?? Anyway, soft, blackening bananas mean only one thing: cake! And as it's our wedding anniversary today, I thought a choc banana cake would be perfect. I found this post with a great recipe at the Friday is Cake Night blog and it is fab-U-lous. We ate big wodges of it today with soya custard, after a lunch in Kariba's, while fondly remembering our lovely wedding in New York: City Hall, sunshine, Gobo Restaurant (now, sadly, no more), carrot cake and roses.

Decorated with a stencil bought in Euro2 - one of four designs

This cake is relatively healthy as it's made with no oil or butter. Again, I have kept the American measurements, in case of disaster in the change-over to metric.

At 10 slices, it makes each slice 210 kcalories. 3g of fat per slice.

With Alpro soya custard - mmm

INGREDIENTS

3 medium ripe bananas

¾ cup brown sugar

½ cup apple sauce

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup self-raising flour

½ cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda (bread soda, in Ireland)

¼ tsp salt

¼ cup dark chocolate chips

icing sugar to decorate (optional)

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 350F/180C
• Grease an 8 inch round tin and line the bottom
• Combine the mashed bananas and sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir until liquidy
• Add the apple sauce, vanilla essence and egg. Stir to combine.
• Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and mix through
• Add the chocolate chips, mix and pour into the prepared baking tin
• Bake for 30 to 35 minutes
• Cool in the tin before turning out

This day five years ago in NYC