Butterless Banana Chocolate Cake Recipe

I love yoghurt, but am not a big fan of butter or milk. I had a basic recipe for a butterless yoghurt cake with banana tucked away and this afternoon I dug it out, tweaked it a bit and did some baking. The batter was a little too much for my standard cake tin, so I baked a cake and a half dozen cupcakes from the batch. They turned out so well that I took pictures and wrote the recipe down.

Now, almost literally warm from the oven, I am presenting the recipe here.

Butterless Banana Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

350g (2 1/2 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
200g (1 cup) sugar
400g (2 cups) mashed bananas (best done with a hand blender)
85g (2/3 cup) walnuts, finely chopped (optional)
180ml (2/3 cup) plain yoghurt or vanilla yoghurt
3 tbsp cocoa powder
finely-grated zest of 1 lemon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Making this cake is simplicity itself. Combine all the ingredients except the walnuts in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until the batter is smooth. Add the walnuts and beat once more to combine.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured springform cake tin (about 22cm [9 in] round) then transfer to an oven pre-heated to 170ºC (350ºF) and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake emerges cleanly.

Note that this is a very moist type of cake and it will not form a hard crust.

Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. This is excellent with a cream cheese icing (frosting).

This batter also makes excellent cupcakes, just cook for 15 minutes instead of 40.