This is a spin I gave to the flipped banana cake 🍌 recipe by the famous Italian cook book “Il cucchiaio d’argento”. A small version of the original recipe is also freely available, in Italian, on the book’s website.

Compared to the original, my version has less sugar and butter, it usually ends up being softer/airier, and includes a bit of cinnamon and apples! 🍎🍏

Details

• Preparation time: 15-20 min.
• Cooking time: 45 min, in the oven at 180 C.
• You can make this cake lactose-free by swapping butter for oat cream, or coconut butter, or by using its lactose-free version.

Ingredients

• 180 g flour (type 00 or similar)
• 180 g dry brown sugar
• 150 g butter
• 2 medium-sized eggs
• 5 bananas
• 2 red apples
• 1 lime
• 10 g of vanilla-scented yeast (or the corresponding amount of baking soda with a pinch of vanilla powder)
• A pinch of salt
• Cinnamon powder.

Preparation

• Start warming up your oven to 180 C and cover the inner sides of a round cake pan (approx. diameter of 25 cm) with baking paper.

Preparing the “top” of the cake:

1. Soften 30 g of butter and spread them homogeneously on the bottom of the cake pan.
2. Distribute 30 g of brown sugar homogeneously on the bottom of the cake pan.
3. Peel the bananas. Then, cut two of them in half (across the long side) and place them on their flat side on the bottom of the cake pan.

Preparing the dough:

1. Smash the remaining three peeled bananas with a fork in a small bowl, add the juice of half of the lime to it, and mix thoroughly with the fork.
2. Peel the apples, remove the inner hard part and seeds, and cut them into cubes of roughly 1-2 cm sides. Then, place them in a clean small bowl, add the juice of the remaining half lime, a tablespoon of brown sugar, and two teaspoons of cinnamon powder, then mix with a tablespoon.
3. In a bowl, mix the remaining brown sugar and butter until they reach a soft and foamy consistency.
4. While mixing, add one egg yolk at a time, alternated by a tablespoon of flour. Save the egg whites in a glass.
5. Sift the remaining flour with the yeast, and mix them into the batter.
6. Whip the egg whites in a separate bowl, previously rinsed with a bit of water and with a pinch of salt.
7. Add the squashed bananas, the apple cubes, and the whipped egg whites to the dough, then slowly mix it with a spatula until the batter looks more homogeneous.

Baking it:

1. Slowly drip the batter into the cake pan, on top of the butter + sugar + bananas.
2. Cook for approximately 45 min in the pre-warmed oven at 180 C. I would recommend checking the cake 5 min before the time is over by sticking the center with a toothpick and checking if it is still humid/wet. Once the stick comes out dry the cake should be ready.
3. Once the cake is properly baked, let it rest until it reaches room temperature, and then… flip it!

Enjoy 🎉 🍰