Simple Banana Cake

I first got the original recipe off Epicurious.com when I had a whole bunch of bananas that were simply wasting away. This recipe’s a bit of a deviation from the original simply because I didn’t have those ingredients on hand at the time but it all came out fine anyway. So here’s my own adulterated recipe for a really simple but really yummy banana cake.
Ingredients
1 cup self-raising flour
Olive oil
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 extra-ripe banana

Before starting off, dust out a regular loaf pan or baking tin with a bit of flour, tapping out the excess. This prevents your cake from sticking to the pan later.

In a large bowl, pour in your cup of self-raising flour. Create a ‘well’ in the middle of the flour and drop in your overripe banana. With your wooden spoon, mash the banana till it’s completely mushy and then drop in your eggs and sugar. Mix all these together and while mixing, slowly add in the olive oil till you get a rather thick batter.

If you’re like me and have to do everything manual without the aid of an electric mixer, always remember that when doing baking of any sort, that you have to mix or stir in only one single direction. Don’t go clockwise in the first 10 minutes and then switch to anti-clockwise for the next 10 minutes coz then you’re just adding a whole lot of unnecessary air into your batter and your cake will be full of “holes” when baked due to the air pockets that you have created. So go ahead and take your time while stirring. Watch a bit of television if you want but just remember to stir in only one direction.

Once you have your batter ready, take a minute out to preheat your oven to about 325 Farenheit. While the oven’s heating, pour your batter out into the baking tin or loaf pan which you had floured earlier. Holding the pan about an inch or so off the top of your kitchen counter or table, lightly ‘drop’ the pan down onto your kitchen counter about 2 or 3 times. This gets rid of any any air pockets that might have formed in the batter while you were pouring it out from the bowl into the pan. It also makes sure that your batter is flat and even in the pan and that your cake won’t turn out lopsided.

Once that is done, put your cake to bake for about 60mins. To check if your cake is done, insert a toothpick into the center of your cake and if it comes out clean, voila! Your cake is ready!

Once the cake is ready, cool the cake for about 15 minutes before removing it from the pan and serving. And there you have it! Nice, moist and very yummy banana cake, all homemade!