Gluten free Banana & Chocolate cake

Tastes so much better than it looks!

What to do when you have extra kids after school? 

On friday's my house is open. Jemima and Frankie both have dance class and then a sleepover so I usually have at least 3 or 4 extra kids, which translates to starving 7 and 11 year olds! 

So this week I decided to bake a cake! It's basically a re-worked version of Tessa Kiros' banana bread,  out of 'Apples for Jam', but I played around a bit and came up with a gluten free, chocolate version.

This cake is super moist and super delicious.

Preheat oven at 180c and line 28cm round cake tin

You'll need:

3 large bananas

½ cup of whole milk, almond milk,goat's milk or rice milk- 2 tablespoons of this milk will be warmed and mixed with bi-carb

3 tablespoons of 'Loving earth Chocolate Coconut butter'

2 eggs

125g butter

100g dark chocolate mini buttons or chopped up chocolate

200g brown rice flour

100g Quinoa flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon of bi-carb

½ teaspoon of vanilla powder - or vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

150g dark brown sugar - (if not useing molasses, you'll need 180g sugar)

2 tablespoons of molasses (you don't need to use the molasses, I ran out of brown sugar so I made it up with this)

a pinch of salt

This is how I did it;

I put the bananas, choclate/coconut butter and most of the milk (leave 2 tablespoons full for your bi-carb) into a Pyrex jug and blitzed them with a hand held baby food thingy till it was smooth like cream.

In my kitchen aid, I beat the butter, sugar and molasses together till well mixed (keep the mixer on and add the banana mixture, whisk well for about 5 min all up).

Now measure out your flour, baking powder, cinnamon, vanilla and salt. Sift it into the bowl with the chocolate mixture and fold them together with a metal spoon (I do this because Hugh says so, and every cake I’ve made doing this has turned out perfect, so why brake something that isn't broken!)

Now melt your bi-carb in your 2 tablespoons of warmed milk – stir well, add this to the cake batter and stir to combine.

Lastly add your chocolate and give it the final mix and then pop it in your cake tin. 

Put into the oven and let it cook for 30 min (or there abouts depending on your oven).

Then let it cool a little in its pan before de-moulding.

Best served warm and also great for after school (which is why I made it) and school lunches.

My house is always chaotic

©Michelle Schoeps 2013

All photos taken by Michelle Schoeps