Not Your Usual Banana Cake

I always enjoy having banana and caramel combo in my dessert or pastry. So you can imagine how much I love this banana cake recipe! Combining cream cheese, banana and caramel in the batter, the cake smells heavenly when it's in the oven. When baked, what you get is a cake that's soft, moist and the flavour of banana and caramel is really yummy!

I've baked this banana cake a few times, and every time I finish a log of cake, I keep wanting for more! Fortunately, this recipe only yields a small cake, so by sharing it with my hubby, I won't feel guilty of taking in too much calories. ;-)

If you happen to have some very ripe bananas sitting in the kitchen, do give this recipe a try!


Banana-Caramel Cake Recipe
Recipe from ちっちゃなチーズケーキのレシピブック

Ingredients:

For the caramel
60g castor sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon hot water
2 tablespoons fresh cream

For the cake
180g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
115g unsalted butter, at room temperature
90g cream cheese, at room temperature
115g caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 1/2 bananas, cut into thickness of 0.5cm
30g cream cheese, cut into small cubes

Method:
To prepare caramel
1) Cook sugar and water in a saucepan. When the syrup turn into amber color, remove from heat immediately.
2) Stir in hot water, follow by cream. Set aside.

To prepare cake batter
1) Preheat the oven to 180 deg C. Grease a 18X8cm rectangular baking pan, line with baking paper.
2) Using an electric mixer, whip butter, cream cheese and 75g of sugar until the mixture turns pale and fluffy.
3) Continue whipping the mixture, add in egg yolks one by one. With each addition, whip until the batter just combine.
4) In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites until foamy. Continue to whisk and at the same time, add remaining 40g of sugar in 5 batches. Whip the egg white until stiff peak forms.
5) Using a rubber spatula, stir in 1/3 of egg white into cream cheese mixture from Step (3). Sift flour and baking powder over the batter, stir until combine.
6) Fold remaining egg white in 2 addtions, stir quickly and scraping down the bottom of the bowl, making sure that the batter is well combined.
7) Lastly, stir in banana pieces and caramel. Scrape the batter into the baking pan, then scatter with cream cheese cubes.
8) Bake in pre-heated oven for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake turns out clean.