Banana-Rama

I have a very shameful habit.

I buy bananas, and then, I let them go black.

Sigh.  It doesn't seem to matter if I buy the smallest bunch I can find, they always manage to go black and squishy before I can eat them for breakfast.

I guess I should really eat breakfast more often.  Or stop buying bananas.

In any case, I am about done with banana nut muffins, banana bread, banana nut pancakes, and feeding banana to my worms in the compost bin.  It was time for a new banana-something recipe.  Thank goodness for banana cake.

Now, banana cake is usually an involved process, with lots of bananas and coconut and an acre of butter and sugar and cream cheese.  Quite delightful, really.  But I was searching for a hide-the-shame-of-more-black-bananas-quickly type of a cake recipe.  Miraculously, one appeared in my Facebook feed one afternoon.  I had everything on hand, even more miraculous, and found time the other morning to bake it up.

Simple Banana Cake (adapted from this recipe from Food in Jars)

You will need: 6 Tablespoons of butter, softened; 1/3 cup maple syrup; 2 eggs; 1 cup mashed banana; 1 cup oat flour*; 1/2 cup all purpose flour; 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda; 1/2 tsp. each of baking powder and salt; 1 teaspoon  ground cinnamon; 1/4 teaspoon each of ground ginger and allspice; 1/3 cup golden raisins.

In your mixer, cream butter and maple syrup together.  Add the eggs and banana, beating well.  In a separate bowl, combine the flours, soda, powder, salt and spices. *I did not have oat flour, and while I attempted to make some by whirling rolled oats in my food processor, they refused to become flour-like.  I'm not sure how people are successful at this--so I had oat chunky bits and all purpose flour.  Hey, it worked.

With the mixer running, add the dry ingredients in three stages blending completely each time.  Fold in the raisins and pour into an 8x8 cake pan or (as I did) into a 9 inch cast iron pan.  Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.  Cool and serve--it's pretty darn good!