As much as my family loves bananas, we seem to get soft black bananas sitting in the fruit bowl way too often. So a good banana cake recipe is a must!
This recipe is a mix of some other recipes with my own Christmassy touches.
Simple but effective presentation of a yummy Christmas gift!
It takes a while to cook but is moist and yummy, and suitable for making into gifts, serving for Santa or simply eating!
Making it as small loaves and wrapping it in red and/or green cellophane is a nice gift idea for hostesses, teachers, leaders and others you want to say thanks to. You can also make it as muffins and roughly half the cooking time, but I don’t think muffins look quite as nice as a gift.
Love Santa’s Christmas Banana Cake Recipe
3 eggs
5 large bananas – the riper the better!
3/4 cup of vegetable oil
2 cups white self-raising flour
1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour
1.5 cups raw sugar (I use 1 cup smart raw sugar to reduce the GI)
0.5 teaspoon of nutmeg
1.5 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup chopped almonds
1 cup cherries (I use jarred cherries but you could use a tin) – cut in halves
4 tablespoons cherry juice (from the jar! Otherwise use cranberry or orange juice)
My son loves making sure the mixture is evenly spread out in the pan!
Beat the eggs together
Add the bananas – many recipes will tell you to add the mashed bananas but to save myself washing an extra dish and because the kids find it fun this way, I put pieces of banana in with the egg and mash in that bowl.
Mix in the oil and juice.
Add flours, spices and sugar and make sure everything is well mixed.
Stir in the fruit and nuts
Pour into your greased cooking pan(s).
Cook for about an hour at 160°C
Cool on a tray and voila!
Moist cherry pieces add a nice surprise to this Christmas banana cake.
A couple of notes…
You can use any nuts you like – 3/4 cup chopped nuts of any type will work. I just happened on the almond/pecan mix because it’s all I had in the cupboard one day when I made this cake! Pistachios could be an interesting alternative I think – or chestnuts may add an authentic Christmas taste for people in the Northern hemisphere!
If you don’t have wholemeal self-raising flour, you can use white. I prefer to use a mixture because it is healthier to have wholemeal but gets too heavy if you didn’t use some white flour.
If cooking with young kids, I strongly suggest chopping the nuts and cherries before you call them into the kitchen – they get bored if they have to wait!
You know, this is the first Christmas Recipe I’ve ever seen that calls for bananas. I’d love to serve this cake with a nice smoothie or Italian Ice after a long Christmas dinner. Though I find myself in the odd position where I want to glaze it with white glaze even though that would probably ruin the taste it’s meant to have.
I guess bananas aren’t very Christmassy but it is a lovely cake to give as a gift 🙂
Does glaze mean icing (ie icing sugar and water/milk/butter)? I think you could ice it but I’d be included to use cream cheese or yoghurt as the base as it gives a richer but subtle taste.