Banana Nut w/ Chocolate Chunks and Walnuts Bundt Cakes
Today, my home baking lab referred to a banana nut muffin recipe that I would use during my years as a young baker. A recipe that was developed using a basic Mangecada format with the additions of dark brown sugar, ripe bananas, cinnamon, and toasted walnuts. The buttery notes from the toasted walnuts along with the ripe-banana flavored cake provide the perfect experience for any sweetbread craving. In some cases, the bananas were not ripe enough for production, so we managed to help mother nature out and ripened the bananas using a slow roasting technique.
The unpeeled bananas are placed and baked on a baking pan for about 20-30 minutes at a low temperature of 250°F. This will not only soften the bananas, but help expel the sugars, making them easier to incorporate into the batter. The darkening or natural browning of the banana peel is a result of starches converting into sugars by a process called enzymatic browning. The high starch content in the banana results in a sugar content of about 80% based on total weight. The high sugar percentage must be considered when adding the ripened bananas to a batter.
Luckily I had some baby bananas that were ripe enough to skip the accelerated ripening step. These baby bananas were part of a gift basket of exotic fruits given to me by my good friend, Gerry Furth-sides Gracias, Gerry!! Your creativity is a true blessing!
I decided on a Bundt pan for easier baking and added chocolate chunks to one of the two cakes. Typically, a Bundt cake is served upside down and dusted with confectioners’ sugar or drizzled with icing. In this case, I inverted the cake then placed it upright to display the crust formation that surfaces as the baking powder reacts to time and temperature during the baking journey.
An interesting fact, that double action from the baking powder resulted in popularity of the banana bread during its inception in the 1930’s. Two decades later, in 1950 the Bundt cake pan was invented in Minneapolis at the request of a Jewish women’s service organization. The ring-shaped cake was inspired by a traditional yeast-raised European cake referred to as Gugelhupf.
The batter is whipped up in two stages. The first stage includes eggs, oil and sugar. Using the wire whip to create aeration from the two emulsifiers. The two emulsifiers create a structured cake suspension that maintains toppings or inclusions over the batter. The second stage includes the dry ingredients, buttermilk, and the ripened bananas.
No doubt, today’s double Bundt cake creation was as delicious as the days I would make it in the bakery.
#bakingevolution
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Alex Peña
“Baking is the most rewarding part of my culinary experiences.”
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