Banana cake

For our picnic at Araluen this weekend I made my favourite banana cake recipe. It is from the Australian Women's Weekly Cafe Cakes.

125g butter
3/4 cup (150g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon mixed spice
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 cup mashed banana
1/2 cup (120g) sour cream
1/4 cup (60mL) milk

Preheat oven to moderate. Grease 15cm x 25cm loaf pan, line base with baking paper.

Beat butter, sugar and spice in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time until combined. Transfer mixture to a large bowl, stir in sifted flour and soda with remaining ingredients.

Spread mixture into prepared pan; bake in moderate oven about 50 minutes. Stand cake in pan 5 minutes; turn onto wire rack to cool.


Notes
- I used wholemeal self raising flour for a bit of extra texture.
- I cooked the cake for 45 minutes. It is usually a very moist cake, this time around it was quite dry. I believe it was because I used frozen bananas, and had poured the liquid off once they had defrosted before using them.
- The recipe includes passionfruit icing. For our picnic I thought it would be nice - and easier! - to serve the cake with mascarpone cheese. I had visions of serving up a warm cake, however it was ready over an hour before we left, and cooking on the barbecues took forever...