One of my favorite recipes is a Banana Nutella bread from Cooking Light magazine. I commented on their recipe on Facebook, and lo and behold, look what showed up in this month's issue!
Yeah, that's me.
Anyway, I needed to cook something for a daytime birthday party, and this bread immediately came to mind, since it's portable, can act as a cake if need be, but wouldn't compete with a real cake if they had one. Plus, I had an inkling that drunk people would really dig it.
But, I needed to make it bigger, better, more party-worthy... and I also needed to use up a lot of strawberries that were just on the edge of daiquiri land. And so, Strawberry Banana Nutella Cake was born.
It's like the most decadent stuffed crepe from the mall food court, but in a moist, not-too-sweet cake/bread hybrid. The recipe calls for way less sugar and fat than usual. And there are two kinds of fruit, so you can pretend it's just a really dense smoothie. With Nutella. And chocolate. Everyone wins!
Strawberry Banana Nutella Cake
Yield: Makes one 8" x 8" / 20cm x 20cm cake
Prep Time: 20 min Cook Time: 50 min Total Time: 70 min
Ingredients
5 Tbs Nutella
3 Tbs plus 1 teaspoon canola or coconut oil
3 Tbs butter, softened
0.5 cup / 114 g packed brown sugar
2 bananas, sliced (or thawed frozen overripe bananas)
2 eggs
6.75 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1.5 cups or 190 g)
0.75 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp salt
2/3 cup / 158 mL whole buttermilk (or sub in 1/4 cup Greek yogurt thinned with about 1/2 cup milk)
1 cup / 225 g strawberries, sliced thin
2 ounces / 57 g of your favorite chocolate, finely chopped
Preheat oven to 350F / 175C. Butter and flour your baking dish all the way up the sides. (The flour helps the cake to crawl up the sides and rise).
In mixing bowl, beat together butter, 3 Tbs oil, bananas and brown sugar. Beat in eggs, one by one.
Melt Nutella plus 1 tsp oil in microwave-safe bowl over 50% power for 1 minute.
Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Beat into mixing bowl over low speed, alternating with buttermilk. Once it's all blended together, fold in strawberries with a spoon.
Add half the batter to the baking dish. Pour melted Nutella over batter in an even layer. Pour over remaining batter. Drag a toothpick through it, so Nutella gets swirled around. Top with chopped chocolate.
Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and serve.