Choco-banana-walnut cake with a Coffee butter icing

It was a weekend I was looking forward to-visiting Mumbai. Home cooked food is the best gift you can give someone. Decided to bake some Choco-banana-walnut cake with a Coffee butter icing. Tried it for the first time and somehow all the elements create a wonderful marriage of flavors. I used the same batter to make cupcakes for my sister. It is worth the effort since I witnessed the whole box being polished off in less than 2 hours and not by a crowd. I usually don't look for words of appreciation when i cook but mostly expressions, they tell all. What says more than a clean box full of chocolate cake, licked piece by piece through fingers until every last bite is finished. This recipe sufficed all criteria.


What you need for the cake:

(Additional info: 1 cup equals to 250 gm/250 ml)

3⁄4 cup unsalted butter

1 and 3⁄4 cups white granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 and 1⁄4 cups mashed bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

3⁄4 cup cocoa

1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3⁄4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sour milk (put 1 tbsp. of vinegar in 3/4 measuring cup, fill with skim milk)

3/4 cup, Chopped walnuts 

What you need for the frosting:

Soft Unsalted butter 100 gm

Double cream (I used Amul fresh cream), 200 ml

Dark chocolate, 250 gm chopped roughly 

Instant Nescafe (or any other brand) coffee powder, 3 tbsp (It depends on how strong you prefer the coffee flavor)

Directions for the cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 180 deg cel.
Cream unsalted butter with sugar and eggs. Add one egg at a time.
Mix in mashed banana and vanilla.
Mix flour with remaining dry ingredients.
Add flour mixture to unsalted butter, sugar and eggs mixture in 3 parts, alternately with sour milk.
Begin and end with flour. Sour milk tends to curdle so make sure you make this quick. 

Fold in the chopped walnuts in the end. 

Spread in 2 greased 8" cake tins or 1 greased 22' cake tin. You could even use the same batter for making cupcakes, the same way I did.
Bake in oven about 40 minutes.
When cool, frost generously with chocolate and coffee butter frosting.

Directions for the frosting:

In a heavy bottomed pan, add cream, chopped chocolate and coffee powder. Heat on a very low flame stirring at all times for 3-4 minutes.You don't want the chocolate burning it has the worst flavor. 

To be on a safer side you could do the same on a double boiler as well.

Once the chocolate has melted partially you could turn off the gas and let it melt completely in the residual heat. 

At this point add the butter and stir until its incorporated completely. If you feel some elements are still not incorporated put it back on a low flame and stir for 1-2 minutes until everything melts. Keep it to chill in the refrigerator until you get a frosting like consistency.