Cynthia's Chocolate Banana Cake

This Cynthia's Chocolate Banana Cake is one of my personal favourites and it's almost been fail-proof for me every time I make it. It's similar to Secret Recipe's version of the Chocolate Banana Cake just that I prefer to use dark chocolate in my version. I made 2 9-inch and 1 4.5-inch cake on Friday for various occasions over the weekend and I took 6 hours, which is rather speedy judging from the fact that my first attempt took me 4 hours! (: 

I'm just really glad that it was a big hit for many! (: That's one of the joy in baking for people I love. 

This recipe is IMAGE INTENSIVE! (:

Cynthia's Chocolate Banana Cake Recipe

This recipe yields a 9 inch round cake

Ingredients:

CHOCOLATE CHIFFON CAKE (A)

30g cocoa powder mixed with 120ml water

4 egg yolks

130g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

60ml corn oil

1 tsp vanilla paste/essence

CHOCOLATE CHIFFON CAKE (B)

4 egg whites

60g castor sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

CHOCOLATE GANACHE FILLING

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

225g dark coverture chocolate

85g unsalted butter

3 eggs, separated

250ml whipping cream

3tbsp castor sugar

4 bananas, sliced

CHOCOLATE GANACHE FROSTING

140ml whipping cream

350g dark coverture chocolate

1 tbsp butter

10g white coverture chocolate

Steps: 

The ingredients!

CHOCOLATE CHIFFON CAKE (A) 

Separated the yolks for Chiffon cake components A and B.

Add baking powder and baking soda to flour.

Add the yolks.

Add the vanilla paste and corn oil.

30g of cocoa with 120ml of water.

Mix well!

Add this into the flour mixture.

Whisk and mix well. 

Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

CHOCOLATE CHIFFON CAKE (B) 

Sugar for (B).

Whisk the egg whites till bubbles appear, usually after 20 seconds.

Add the cream of tartar. Let it be well incorporated. 

Add the sugar and allow it to be well incorporated.

Whisk the mixture till' stiff peaks form and when the bowl is tipped over, the mixture is firm. 

Line the cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Add 1/3 of (B) into (A) and fold in. You can use either a spatula or whisk.

When mixture is more or less well 'folded in', add another 1/3.

When mixture is well mixed, add the last 1/3 of the egg whites.

Pour the cake mixture into the tin. Drop the tin from a low height of 3 - 5 cm to release the air bubbles in the mixture.

Bake cake for 30 minutes or till' toothpick comes out clean from the middle of the cake. I truly LOVE my new Cornell oven.. my cakes have never been this pretty in my old oven! XD

Let cake cool before removing it from tin to allow it to cool more. I placed my cake on a wire rack under the ceiling fan to speed up the cooling process.

I also made 4.5-inch versions of this cake! (This is not part of the recipe)

CHOCOLATE GANACHE FILLING

Separate the eggs.

The whipping cream before whipping. 

The butter.

Dark coverture chocolate buttons from PH!

The sugar.

Double boil the chocolate buttons. I used 2 pots from Daiso to do this. The one below is smaller so it 'props' up the upper pot. (:

Melt the chocolate! Stir occasionally. I love this shiny sheen.

When chocolate has melted, remove from heat and add butter and egg yolks.

Mix well and return to double boiler till mixture thickens like this.

Set chocolate mixture aside to cool.

Whip the whipping cream! 

This should take about 5 minutes or so. Whip till cream becomes 'fluffy' and stiff peaks form!

Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl till bubbles appear. This is usually after 20 seconds of mixing.

Add in the cream of tartar and allow it to be well incorporated.

Add in the sugar and mix well till' stiff peaks form.

Add the chocolate mixture to the whipping cream. Ensure that the chocolate mixture has cooled before adding it to the whip cream. Else, the whipped cream will 'melt'. 

Stir well!

Add the egg white mixture in. Mix well!

You should get something like this! (: Set the mixture by placing it in the fridge to cool for 30 minutes to an hour. Alternatively, you can 'cheat' by cooling it in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Chocolate ganache filling is cooled, set and ready to be used!

My workstation for assembly! (: I'm using a 10-inch cake base for the cake. You may use a 11-inch cake base as I find the 10-inch cake base a lil' too small after all the frosting. (:

Prepare a sugar solution with 1 part water and 1 part fine/castor sugar and mix well till sugar is dissolved. Spray the sugar solution on the cake between layers to keep the cake moist. 

Beautiful cake! ((:

Using a cake leveler, slice the cake into 3 parts. You may do so free hand with a serrated knife too.. but it takes a lil' more skill.. (: For this cake, i leveled the height I wanted to cut the cake and I made a small slit using the serrated knife before using the cake leveler to slice through the cake (: 

Super thin bottom layer!

Spread a layer of chocolate ganache filling before adding sliced bananas.

During assembly, should the chocolate ganache filling be too soft to work with, return filling to the fridge and the cake to the freezer to set the filling. I love using the freezer cos' it firms up the chocolate ganache filling, making my assembly easier. (:

Top off with more chocolate ganache before adding the next layer.

Repeat steps!

More chocolate ganache filling (:

I had this last layer of chocolate ganache a lil' thicker (:

Top off with the top level of cake.

Be generous with this layer of chocolate ganache filling on the top of the cake!

Do a crumb coating by spreading a thin layer of chocolate ganache filling around the sides of the cake. Ensure that cake is covered well. Allow cake to set in the fridge for 20 minutes or so or 10 minutes in the freezer.

When crumb coating has 'set', be generous with the chocolate ganache by spreading it all over!

More of it! (: This layer should be really thick! (: Pop the cake back into the freezer while you prepare the chocolate ganache frosting!

CHOCOLATE GANACHE FROSTING

The whipping cream.

Loads and loads of chocolate! Be sure to use a good quality chocolate here cos' it'll make the frosting so super awesome! (: I find the PH dark coverture chocolate good enough (:

Double boil the whipping cream to warm it.

Add the butter.

Add the chocolate and mix! This resembles burbor hitam XD

Mix well! (: Allow mixture to cool before frosting the cake, else the chocolate ganache filling will 'melt'.

I used a bowl of iced water to cool my frosting. (:

The cake after it has set! (: 

Frost the cake. I did this manually using a spatula. You may wanna do so using a wire rack and allow the frosting to 'flow' down but I find this method easier and less messy! 

Be generous too! You'll want a thick and tasty frosting layer! (:

I used my triangle 'teeth' tool to draw lines on the side of the cake (:

WHITE CHOCOLATE DECORATION 

The white chocolate buttons I used.

Double boil the chocolate to melt it.

Mix well. When chocolate has cooled a lil', scoop it into a piping bag.

Cut a small hole at the bottom of the piping bag and design! I love this simple yet classy stripe design! Pop cake back into the fridge to set for 2 hours before serving. Else, the layers of the cake may slide off! 

This is the 4.5-inch version of the cake, not included in this recipe.

Beautiful cake! But it's really heavy! (:

The 4.5-inch version I baked for the mama-to-be for mum's day (:

The insides of the cake.

The cake slice.

This cake is super rich but yet lovely. 

Hope that you'll enjoy baking this as much as I did! (:

I'd love to see the bakes or stuff you've cooked using the blog's recipe! Do share photos of stuff you've baked or cooked using the blog's recipe with me either via FB message to http://facebook.com/limcynthia OR http://facebook.com/thebakingbiatch OR via email at cynthia.lim.hl@gmail.com! I look forward to hearing from you! (: