Carrot and Banana cake

My brother came to visit over the weekend and as his birthday is this Friday I thought we could celebrate in advance with some cake. I was planning to make him a carrot cake and then happened to sample this carrot and banana cake at the lovely Ela’s. Although I always think the Hummingbird recipe I often use is the ultimate sinful carrot cake recipe, I do like to try new ones as well, just in case I am missing something.

I have plenty of banana cake recipes and quite a few carrot cake recipes as well, but I’m not sure that I have any that combine the two. So if, like me, you happen to have both bananas and carrots that could do with using up, this is perfect. As the bananas add to the sweetness, the recipe uses less sugar than a lot of recipes would. The ratio of icing to cake is also lower as it is just used on the top. The original recipe used wholemeal flour but as I didn’t have any I used white flour instead. I’m sure it would be delicious (and healthier) with wholemeal.

Recipe

Cake

150ml sunflower oil

250g SR flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

150g soft brown sugar

60g walnuts, chopped

125g carrots, grated

2 ripe bananas, mashed

2 large eggs

Icing

300g icing sugar

50g butter, softened

125g cream cheese

Method

Set the oven to 180ºC. Grease, and line the bottom of, a loose-based, deep sided 8″ cake tin.

Put all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix until well combined.

Turn the mixture into the prepared cake tin and gently level.

Bake for around 50 minutes, until the cake is well risen, firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin for a while before turning out onto a wire cooling rack and leaving to cool completely.

Allow to cool completely before icing

Make the icing:

Sieve the icing sugar into a mixer bowl and add the softened butter.

Beat slowly until the mixture starts to develop a sandy texture and then add the cream cheese.

Beat slowly to mix in and then turn the speed up for a few minutes to make the icing light and fluffy.

When the cake has completely cooled, spread as much icing as you need over the top of the cake. You may not need the whole amount but it will keep in the fridge in a sealed container.

You can leave the cake plain or decorate it with sprinkles or walnuts. I always think it’s a good idea to put walnuts on top of a cake that contains them if you have any worries about nut allergies. I left them off in the hope that my son would forget there were walnuts in it if he didn’t see any on top, as he is convinced he doesn’t like them and I am convinced he does… It sort of worked.

Happy Birthday to my brother Steven!

Categories: Baking, Cakes, Fruit, Recipes, Vegetables

Tags: baking, banana bread, bananas, cake, carrot cake, carrots, cream cheese, cream cheese icing, frosting, icing, recipe, vegetables, walnuts