Moist & Decadent Chocolate Banana Cake

A classic chocolate banana cake that is so incredibly moist and delicious! You can serve this chocolate banana cake as a dessert, perhaps with a decadent chocolate ganache frosting for chocolate lovers; but for me, I prefer it as it is, as a snack with a cup of coffee or tea.

Key Ingredients for this Recipe

This recipe calls for basic baking staples, but the key ingredient here is the ripened bananas. If you have brown, overripe bananas, don’t throw them out – use them to make this moist, tender and decadent chocolate banana cake. Yes, the browner they get, the sweeter they are, the better it is!

And of course good quality chocolate! Using cocoa powder AND chocolate chips make this cake a dream for chocoholics out there! I use Callebaut pure 100% cocoa powder and for the chocolate chips, I personally prefer them dark so I used Callebaut 54.5% Callets. Feel free to use any milk chocolate chips of your choice.

I used brown sugar in this recipe, as I’ve learnt that brown sugar helps to keep cake moist. If need be, you can of course substitute with castor sugar. This recipe yields a cake that isn’t too sweet as I’ve adjusted the sugar level – so we can enjoy an extra slice or two without the guilt. 😉

I love fine-textured cakes, which is why I opted for super-fine cake flour in this recipe as it will produce a lighter and more tender cake. You may also substitute with 150g of self-raising flour and omit the baking powder and salt.

If you like nuts, walnuts and/or pecans go really well with bananas. I will share notes in the recipe below on when to fold in some chopped walnuts/pecans – which you can also use to top the cake. Alternatively, you can also top the cake with a half-sliced banana like I did, or if you LOVE chocolate, go for it and top with more chocolate chips!

Egg Separation Method

This recipe uses the egg separation method, which means you will be separating the eggs into the yolks and egg whites. After which, we will aerate the egg white, whipping air into it until stiff peaks. This method incorporates more air into the cake batter, which in turn yields a tender, fluffier cake.

Many find this method challenging because:

1. unable to beat egg white meringue to peak
2. over-mixing/under-mixing when folding in the egg whites

Below I will be sharing some tips to guide you on the above two points.

Beating Egg Whites

There are a few things to note for proper aeration of egg whites.

The first being spotlessly clean equipments. This means your mixing bowl and beaters will need to be clean from any residue. Should the egg whites come in contact with any residue of fats (ie. yolk or grease retained in your equipment), it will not whip up properly.

This brings me to my next point of ensuring that when separating eggs, ensure no yolk gets into the egg whites. What I would suggest doing is to separate each egg into a smaller bowl before transferring into the mixing bowl. IF you break your yolk by accident, or find any speck of egg yolk in the egg white, I suggest you save it for another use. This recipe calls for 3 eggs; whereby we will be separating 2 eggs and keeping an egg as a whole – so if you do break a yolk, set aside for later use.

Eggs are easier to separate when chilled, but whips up better at room temperature. If you are using eggs from the fridge, the first step would be to separate eggs first, then let it come down to room temperature whilst you prepare your other ingredients. Let it sit in room temp for 20 minutes or so to warm up a little.

Using an electric mixer would really help. You can beat manually with a hand whisk, but it will be tricky and requires a lot of endurance to achieve stiff peak! Using the Thermomix in this instance is perfect – as it gets the egg whites whipped up so swiftly.

Folding in Egg Whites

The key here is to do gentle folds and to fold in the egg whites in 2-3 additions. Our aim is to ensure we do not overmix as this would deflate the egg whites. In fact, the lesser you mix, the lighter the cake will be.

Always start with a small portion, about 1/3 or 1/4 of the meringue to loosen up the batter.

To fold, drop a dollop of meringue on the batter, then slice down the center of the batter with the blade of your spatula. Fold over to the left, whilst scooping the batter upwards to “fold over” the egg white meringue. Repeat with the same motion whilst rotating the bowl with your other hand, ensuring to keep your flipping motion gentle.

It takes a bit of patience to fold the meringue into the batter, it will not incorporate in just a few folds. Do not stir the mixture in an attempt to combine the mixture – this will deflate the egg whites and you might end up with a flat cake.

You will find that your batter will become lighter and fluffier with the more meringue you fold in. This video HERE from 2:45 onwards will provide some visual guidance.

This Chocolate Banana cake is so divine, you’d want to make them again and again! If you do not have brown bananas handy, I promise this recipe is worth a trip to the supermarket discount corner to score yourself some overripe bananas!

If you enjoyed this recipe, you might also want to try this Easy 6-ingredients Moist Banana Cake recipe or check out my recipe index for more other delicious recipes!

Have you tried this recipe?

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