Chocolate Banana Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake
1 C (5 oz/142 g) all-purpose flour
½ C (1 ½ oz/43 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
½ t (2 g) baking soda
½ t (3 g) salt
¼ C (2 oz/57 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ C (3 ½ oz/99 g) light brown sugar
¼ C (1 ¾ oz/50 g) granulated sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
½ t vanilla extract
1 C (8 oz/227 g) 2 small mashed ripe bananas

Frosting
2 C (8 oz/227 g) powdered sugar
¼ C (2 oz/57 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 oz (57 g) cream cheese, room temperature
2 T (30 ml) heavy cream
1 T (5 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
Pinch salt

Position oven rack in middle position and heat to 350° F (177° C). Spray an 8 × 8-inch baking pan with nonstick baking spray with flour. Set aside.

Cake – In small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla on medium speed until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes. A hand mixer works as well here if you don’t have stand mixer.

Reduce mixer speed to low, add one-third of flour mixture and mix briefly. Add half of mashed banana and mix again. Add half of remaining flour mixture and mix briefly, then add rest of mashed banana, and remaining flour mixture. Use spatula to scrape sides and bottom of bowl and finish mixing. Do not over mix with mixer.

Spread batter in even layer and bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted 1 inch from edge of pan comes out clean. Cool cake on wire rack until slightly warm or room temperature.

Frosting – Using electric mixer, beat powdered sugar, butter, cream cheese, heavy cream, cocoa powder, and salt on low speed until combined, then increase speed to medium high and beat until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl once or twice. Spread frosting over cake and serve. The cake can be stored, covered with plastic wrap, at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Makes: one 8 × 8-inch cake

15 May 18 – I’m well familiar with this food blogger so I’m very confident in her recipes and this looked like a simple and straight forward one. I followed it as written with minor changes. I lined the pan with parchment paper because I wanted to easily remove it after baking. The small glass bowl was good for the dry ingredients and the 1 ¾ bananas (medium) fit easily in the medium glass bowl. The potato masher did a good job and made quick work of the bananas. I used my stand mixer but I’m confident a hand mixer would have also worked well. I did have a little trouble incorporating the butter even though it was at room temp (66°F) and that was with beating the wet ingredients for 3 plus minutes and still had small pieces of butter not incorporated. Mixing wet and dry ingredients produced a nice batter which made it easy to pour in the pan and spread easily. It was at this point I realized the batter did not fill the pan very much. The cake baked in the island oven for 23 ½ minutes. The center was still wet at the 20 minute mark although using the recipes instructions, I tested 1-inch from edge and toothpick came out clean. Cooled on wire rack for at least 2 hours before frosting. Frosting came together just as described in recipe and this time I used my hand mixer with no problem. Because of previous difficulties with cream cheese, I made sure it was at room temperature before making the frosting. In hindsight, the cake was thinner than I thought it should be and the next time I’d make it in an 8 × 8 vs the 9 × 9-inch pan called for in the original recipe with the baking time adjusted appropriately. The cake had a good chocolate and banana flavor and was moist with a good crumb. Baking time was about right.