Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Marbled Banana Chocolate Cake



My need to experiment in the kitchen again. I used to make a Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread four years ago which I loved. Then, I kind of stop making it because I don't always stock up on chocolate chips. Also I rather prefer the cake texture instead of the bread texture. So, I played with the recipe and created this. I always have cocoa powder in my pantry so I used that instead of chocolate bar or chocolate chips. But I think the chocolate flavor will come out more with chocolate bar or chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder. I hardly taste the cocoa powder, this cake tasted like a banana cake with a pretty marbled effect.


See the marbled effect? They called this Zebra marbling effect.

As you can see, I tried out a new marbling effect which they called zebra. It does look a lot like zebra and very pretty. I made this cake to have for breakfast and afternoon snack so I didn't really pay a lot of attention when doing the layering. Thus, I was actually surprised that it turned out pretty good even with how careless and little care I paid on it. Hence, anyone can certainly do the zebra effect on her cake with ease.


Whole cake view from the top. See how careless I was with it, uneven striped when layering.



Ingredients:

(A)

  • 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. banana essence
  • 1/4 cup canola oil (or vegetable oil)
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/4 cup milk (I used 2%)
  • 2 bananas, smashed (I used frozen)

(B)

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt

(C)

  • 1 Tbsp. Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder (you can used regular cocoa powder)

The effect!

Method:


1. Preheat the oven to 350'F. Spray and cover the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment paper. Spray on top and sides of pan. Set aside.


2. In a big bowl, hand whisk together (A). Add in (B), whisk until well blended.


3. Take out 1 cup of the batter and place in another small bowl. Add in (C) and stir with spoon to combine.


4. Marbling effect: Place a scoop of the white batter in the middle of the pan. On top of the white batter, add some of the dark batter in the middle. Then alternate with white and dark until all the batters are finished.


5. Bake for 30 minutes or until a bamboo stick inserted in center comes out clean.


6. Cool on wire rack and store in air-tight container.


34 comments:

Sweet Treats by Dani said...

this is the prefet way to use up my ripe bananas! thanks for sharing :)

Valerie said...

I saw a similar cake on another blog today, but it didn't have banana and I just love banana. Yours looks so cute!

Katie said...

Hmm.... I haven't thought of putting chocolate into my banana bread! THis is something i will have to try :D

sock peng said...

very nice look

Amy J in SC said...

That looks reeeeaaaal good. I might just try the marbling thing. I'm sure if I mess it up it will still taste good. Thanks for sharing!

Jennifer said...

Perfect marbling! This looks so good!! I love banana and chocolate together.

tigerfish said...

Lovely marble cake :)

diva@The Sugar Bar said...

this looks yum and very very moist! banana and chocolate always a fab combination.

Sonia ~ Nasi Lemak Lover said...

The marble effect is not bad, if I going to do this marble effect, it will worst than yours, hahaha..too bad, my kids doesn't like banana flavour of cake, I can't give it a try.

Bits said...

This looks so good! Lovely and looks so tasty! Can I have some?

tracieMoo said...

wow, really nice chocolate swirls.. chocolate + banana definitely the best formula!

pigpigscorner said...

Love the marbling effect!

Ju (The Little Teochew) said...

Zebra effect! Love the cross-section, that's what matters more than the top view! Bet it tastes out of this world!

angie said...

Wow, awesome!

I would like to try with chocolate chips since I have lots of it at home.

How do it with chocolate chips substitution?

Thanks!

Little Corner of Mine said...

Thanks ladies.

Angie, you can melt 1/4 cup or 1/3 cup of chocolate chips in the microwave and then mix it in the batter that you want it to be chocolate. Happy Baking!

SIG said...

It's gorgeous but can you next time take step by step photos to show how you achieved that? :P

Unknown said...

i loveeeee the zebra pattern effect...i wonder if i can manage to make the zebra effect

Little Corner of Mine said...

Haha SIG, ok, next time when I make it again, I will take some pictures to show my readers.

Rita, of course you can! Have confidence in yourself! ;)

Beachlover's Kitchen said...

pretty marble effect!! I bet it's must taste good especially I love banana cake!

No-frills recipes said...

Hi

Your Zebra banana choc cake sure looks good and it's worth all the effort. A real success.

m said...

I used to sometimes make my banana bread with about a 1/4 cup of cocoa powder replacing some of the flour - very few people could tell that it was a chocolate bread they were eating, unless I also added chocolate chips, but it really enhanced the banana flavor. This chocolate and banana cake looks lovely!

A Full-Timed Housefly said...

Hi I would like to share my Kreativ award with you , can you visit my blog to pick it up ? Thanks

Little Corner of Mine said...

Les, it is delicious! I will have to go buy more banana so that I can make this again. Hehe...

Thanks No-frills recipes.

Thanks m. Yeah, agreed to what you said.

KT said...

Wow, that looks really pretty for, it seems, not a lot of effort.

Karine said...

Wowowow I love the effect of the chocolate circles. Thanks for sharing!

hcpen said...

wow, marble cake reminds me of my childhood:-)

nothingness said...

this is so cute!!!

Noob Cook said...

very nice "zebra" markings. Your bakes always look so pro!

lululu said...

i've made zebra cake b4. same effect but totally different taste and color.
i love that u used banana and dark chocolate!

Unknown said...

hi.. i've tried to follow your recipe but instead i used sour cream instead of milk. just thought it might improve the texture since i'm no expert in baking at all.. however, my cake came out HEAVY and gluey! err.. any tips on how i can get ur fine texture? so the proportion of white mixture is more than the choc mixture? my cake somehow had too much weight on the bottom , leaving a crispy top with a layer of nothing and the gluey stuff just stayed at the bottom.. can u help?

Little Corner of Mine said...

Joanne, just follow the recipe to the T, okay? This is already a moist and soft cake so why changed the milk to sour cream? I have used this recipe numerous time already and all yield the same result. And yes the proportion of white batter is more than the dark batter.

Roxy Te said...

This looks delicious!!!

Sarah said...

Took this out of the oven a while ago. It was a little crumbly and extremely soft. Also not very sweet. The kids loved it though. :)

Little Corner of Mine said...

Thanks for your feedback Sarah, yeah most of my recipes are not very sweet, I like it just nice. Probably not suitable for people with sweet tooth. :P