Classic Banana Cake with Passion Fruit Cream
With sincere admiration and respect I hope we are all past the phase of calling banana bread a bread instead of what it really is, cake. This recipe is multipurpose. On one hand you have a sublime straightforward banana cake and on the other hand you have a tangy passion fruit cream giving a pro touch. The inspiration for the cake is derived from a memory when I visited Sydney, Australia in January of 2020. Brekkie culture is a serious morning moment in Australia. My friend Aya was showing me around Sydney and we stopped into a local café for a quick macadamia cappuccino and a small bite. I ordered the “banana bread” (see previous feelings/statement) with passion fruit curd. The initial bite was perplexing. Two exotic fruits occupying different ends of the flavor spectrum. Bananas have their rum, brown sugary sweetness whilst passion fruit is sharp, acidic and floral. The banana confection could have been served on its own yet the passion fruit was starting to feel nonnegotiable. From my memory the portion was small and quite dense in it’s look and texture. I wanted to develop a banana cake that offers lightness and is not chock-full of nuts, spices or chocolate. The whipped cream cheese with fresh zippy passion fruit juice mounted in sits tenderly atop the banana cake. The first bite and the last bite bend the law of diminishing returns. How can something grow in curiosity the more you dive into it?
Makes one 8 inch cake
For the banana cake:
140g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
120ml grapeseed oil, plus 1T for brushing the pan
150g dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
120ml sour cream (buttermilk and crème fraîche work well too)
2 bananas, very ripe and peeled
For the Passion Fruit Cream:
113g unsalted butter (1 stick), at room temperature
226g cream cheese (8 oz), at room temperature
80g powdered sugar
pinch of kosher salt
50ml passion fruit juice, fresh (this is the quantity of juice from approximately three whole passion fruit). *Press passion fruit pulp through a fine mesh sieve with a spoon or spatula for best result. Plus one whole passion fruit reserved for decoration.
Making the cake:
Preheat oven to 350ºF with a rack positioned in the center of the oven.
Brush a round eight inch cake pan with grapeseed oil and line with a parchment round cut to fit the bottom of the pan. Brush the parchment round with grapeseed oil.
In a medium sized bowl combine flour, baking soda and kosher salt gently whisking together.
In a large bowl whisk together grapeseed oil with dark brown sugar to ensure no large lumps are formed. Add one egg at a time whisking to emulsify. After both eggs are incorporated whip in sour cream. Take the ripe bananas and break them up with your hands into small pieces adding to the wet mixture. Scatter the dry mixture on top of the wet batter and using a rubber spatula folding everything together judiciously with no clumps of flour.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes rotating half way through. A knife should come out mostly clean from the center of the cake. Allow the cake to cool on a rack in the pan for at least 45 minutes up to an hour. *Since the cake is mostly wet, it needs additional time to cool compared to drier more delicate cakes.
Making the passion fruit cream:
In a large bowl combine butter and cream cheese. Work the butter and cream cheese together using a whisk until homogenous. Add in powdered sugar with kosher salt and initially hydrate the sugar before really whipping it together. Whilst whipping the cream, try to work in as much air as possible for about 1-2 minutes. Do not be tempted to over-whip. Be deliberate but not careless. Stream in half of the passion fruit juice initially whisking to combine. Add remaining passion fruit juice and work the whisk to build volume in 2-3 minutes then stop.
Finish the cake:
Dollop the passion fruit cream over the cooled banana cake using the back of a spoon to create swooshy craters to collect the remaining passion fruit seeds. Evenly decorate the top with passion fruit pulp aiming for those craters. Slice and serve.
Notes on the cake:
This cake can sit out for a couple of hours at room temperature. The whole decorated cake freezes really well up to one week. The banana cake can be made a day ahead and finished the following day with the passion fruit cream. The banana cake (no passion fruit cream) is shelf stable up to three days wrapped or covered.