Drip, Pour, or Spread Some More: Espresso Banana Cake

I've been keeping bananas on hand for baking because the Whole-Grain Banana Bread that is the King Arthur Flour 2018 Recipe of the Year is very tasty. I've been baking loaves of bread, slicing them, and stashing them in the freezer so that I can just pull out one slice at a time to enjoy for breakfast. But after going through a few loaves of the banana bread I thought I should try something new. So I decided to use the overripe bananas I had on hand to make a Los Angeles Times recipe for Espresso Banana Cake. A few months ago I tried the combination of bananas and espresso for the first time in some muffins and thought it was fantastic.

This is a really simple recipe. To make the cake, you cream butter, shortening, and sugar; add eggs, followed by vanilla, mashed bananas, and Kahlúa; incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt); and fold in walnuts (I toasted mine first). You pour the batter into a 9-inch by 13-inch pan and bake.
Once the cake is cooled, you apply a glaze made from cream cheese, butter, instant espresso powder, and powdered sugar. I was a little confused as to what the consistency of the glaze should be. It's called a "drip glaze" and the recipe says it should be pourable. But the ingredient list doesn't include any liquid, so it doesn't seem logical that it should be pourable. The recipe says to thin the glaze with water if necessary but since the glaze contains cream cheese, I thought it made more sense to thin it out with milk. I added a little milk but decided to keep the glaze thicker and more frosting-like instead of trying to get it thin enough to pour; I had enough glaze to spread a decent amount over the entire top of the cake. The recipe doesn't provide any instructions for storage, but I kept the cake in the fridge because of the cream cheese in the glaze.

I brought the cake back to room temperature before serving. It was fantastic. There is something so comforting and homey about banana cake, and this one was springy and moist and full of sweet banana flavor. Even though the cake batter contains a half cup of coffee liqueur, I couldn't taste the alcohol or the coffee flavor in the cake itself. But the glaze had a very strong espresso flavor. I would have preferred a straight cream cheese frosting -- but then again, cream cheese frosting is my favorite. My tasters raved about the cake and several singled out the espresso glaze for praise. Coffee and banana is a great flavor pairing.

I love a good banana cake and this one is terrific. You could obviously pair it with any frosting or glaze you like, although I personally think a cake of this style is more appropriately paired with a fluffy frosting as opposed to a runny glaze.

Recipe: "Espresso Banana Cake" from the March 22, 2000 Los Angeles Times.

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