Banana Yoghurt Mocha Date Cake

Banana Yoghurt Mocha Date Cake recipe

The idea of this cake came from wanting to bake with the flavor combinations of chocolate, banana, coffee and dates. Yes this seems like a very weird combination but it works!

How I came up with this recipe, well we know chocolate and coffee are a dream together. Banana and chocolate are also an obvious paring. The dates were a way of cutting down the sugar amount in the cake, however they also go really well with banana. After playing around with these ingredients and the quantity of each one the final cake recipe came out absolutely delicious. The flavor just works together so well – I even surprised myself with this hit.

Ingredients:

Cake:

230g self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder
110g brown sugar
140g sliced banana (2 large bananas)
1 egg
140g vanilla yoghurt
130g butter
2 tsn coffee granules
90g dates
50g dark chocolate

Icing:

200g thickened cream
20g icing sugar
1 tsn vanilla essence

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180c degrees and line a 30cm cake tin with baking paper.
Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and sugar into a bowl.
Make a well shape in the center of the dry mix.
Mash the banana until smooth in a bowl.
Add the egg and yoghurt to the banana mix and whisk with a fork until well combine.
Melt the butter and add the coffee granules, stir. Add to the banana mix and stir until combine.
Dice the dates and chocolate into small pieces and add to the dry mix, stir to combine.
Add the wet mix into the center of the dry mix and using a spoon stir until well combine.
Add the dates and chocolate and stir to combine.
Spoon the mix into the tin and flatten the top with the back of a spoon.
Bake the cake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
Place the cake on a cooling rack until cold.
Meanwhile whisk the cream, icing sugar and vanilla until peaks form.
Spread over the top and sides of the cake.
Decorate with shavings of chocolate and a few extra chopped dates.