Banana Bundt Cake with Bourbon Chocolate Glaze

Does anybody really buy bananas before they decide to make bread? For me it´s always the effect, never the cause. Yet again, my basket was overflowing with too ripe bananas. In an attempt to change the incredibly good but kind of repetitive bread or muffin I started looking for alternatives, and ended with this simple cake. It´s cake you guys. Good, light textured cake. No dense banana bread here. And drizzled with a luscious, dark chocolate glaze livened up with some dashes of bourbon. The texture is perfectly moist with a definite banana flavor. Ideal for tea, a picnic, afterschool snack, nibbling while working, taking to the guys at the office.

The glaze adds a lot. Because it´s not too much and it has that boozy aftertaste that´s palatable but at the same time just a hint. Oh, I can go on forever about the absolute delight of baking with booze. Next time I make this recipe I´ll add an extra, but very necessary step, according to me of course,  that consists of drenching the cake right after it comes out of the oven with a mixture of sugar and the liqueur of choice. Then the flavor will be loud and clear, perfect for a celebration. Like today´s. In the north hemisphere at least. Not here.

In this city it´s been drizzling all day, and I had to go to a meeting downtown. That is like the worst idea on days like these. It´s cold but very humid, with that annoying sticky rain, traffic that can get you swearing words you didn´t even know existed and, the cherry on the cake, those persons using umbrellas that just don´t know how to use the sidewalk while holding said item. I mean, I´m not carrying an umbrella but have to make room for them (the umbrella folks) under the barely-there roof that runs alongside the shops, so they end up carrying umbrellas and walking under the tiny bit of shelter available, while I (the non-umbrella person) just walk under the rain and soak.

Anyway, I got home wet, hungry and cranky. With a need for comfort. And there was the banana Bundt waiting. Such a treat on a bleak day. I had made it two days ago, when the sun was shinning and we ate lunch on the terrace.

BANANA BUNDT CAKE

from KissMy Bundt, by Chrysta Wilson

2 ½ cups (290g) all purpose flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup (180g) unsalted butter, at room tº

1 ¾ cups (350g) sugar

3 eggs, room tº

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ¼ cups (310cc) whole milk

2 medium-large bananas, very ripe and mashed

Preheat oven to 350º F/ 180º C

Butter well and flour a large Bundt pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl beat butter until creamy, 1 or 2 minutes. Add sugar gradually beating for 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, and beating an additional 2 minutes after the last one is incorporated. Add vanilla extract.

Add dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk in two parts.

Add banana and mix just until no streaks of flour remain.

Pour into pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Invert onto wire rack and cool completely. If cake resists, let stand 10 minutes and invert again.

CHOCOLATE BOURBON GLAZE

1/2 cup (125cc) cream

4 oz (115g) bittersweet chocolate

2 Tbs (30g) butter, at room tº

1 Tbs corn syrup

3 Tbs bourbon

Chop chocolate and put, together with cream, in a glass or stainless steel bowl over boiling water (bottom of bowl doesn´t have to touch water). When the chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth, add butter and mix well. Return from heat, add bourbon and let reach a cool consistency.

Pour over glaze that has been put on a wire rack with a parchment paper underneath to catch any drips.