Banana Walnut cake

Hi friends!

Happy to meet you all after a gap.Thanks for all your encouraging comments and mails that keep me going. Sorry, I missed many of your delicious posts and trying to catch up now:) The summer and the vacations made me quite busy and tired. The heat is horrible here, but couldn't stop us from roaming around and swimming (Don't imagine me with a lot of swimming skills, I am a learner for a long time).Moreover I tried a lot of recipes and waiting to share them with you all.

Let's start with something sweet. Here is a version of a very moist, spongy banana walnut cake. I got the recipe from this website. It is a very successful one and the best cake I have ever tasted. Try and let me know:)

Cake batter prepared without any lumps.

The Banana walnut cake is baked.

Banana walnut cake sliced and served.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 2 1/2 cup
Baking soda - 1 tbsp
salt - 1/8 tsp
butter - 1/2 cup (8 tbsp or 1 stick)
(don't use oil here, as I am calculating the moisture from butter too. Otherwise we may need to add some water also)
White sugar - 1 cup
Brown sugar - 3/4 cup
egg - 2
Ripe banana - 4 (long ones)
butter milk - 2/3 cup
(2/3 cup milk + 1 tsp vinegar can be substituted here)
walnut (chopped)- 1/2 cup
vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F (175 deg C). Grease two (8"x8" square) cake pans with 1/4 tsp butter (each).

Chop the walnuts into small pieces and mix a tsp of all purpose flour with it.

Add the egg, butter, both sugars,salt,vanilla essence, buttermilk to a mixer / blender and beat till it turns fluffy.

Pour it to a broad mixing bowl.

Then put the bananas in the mixer and slightly mash them (two or three pulse is enough). Add it to the mixing bowl. Mix well.

Now sift the flour with baking soda twice (to make the cake fluffy) and put it in the mixing bowl. Beat and mix the batter very well using a fork or whisk (not a blender, as the bananas will get over mushy).
In between, if you see some lumps, then leave the batter for a 5 minutes and then start beating. This helps in soaking and a smooth batter without any lumps.

Stir in half the chopped nuts.

Pour the prepared batter in the pans for two inches height and spread the walnuts over the batter. Bake the cake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Insert a skewer to check if the cake is completely baked.

Take out and place on a damp towel to cool (This generates much steam and makes the cake moist). Then carefully remove from the pan and cool completely (for an hour or more).

Then slice and serve with or without frosting.

Tips:

Don't open the oven for the first 35 minutes.
The cake will be fluffy as soon as we take out of the oven, but after a few minutes it will loose the bump in the top.Don't panic, this will not affect the texture of the cake.
Always use the well ripened (skin turned black) banana for making a cake.
We can freeze and store the bananas that turn black and of no further use. Remove the skin and store them in zip lock covers in freezer. Just bring them to room temperature and blend in the liquid that oozes out also.
Cream cheese frosting is the usual one.