Malted Banana Upside Down Cake
The Crumb Looks Pretty Nice
Time: 3 Hours 30 minutes (including cooling)
Ingredient Availability: 4/5
Difficulty: 3/5
Apparently, Claire Saffitz isn’t the biggest fan of bananas. Unlike her, I think banana are probably a top 3 fruit. Desserts with real banana in them rarely disappoint me, so I definitely have high hopes for this recipe from What’s For Dessert. Hopefully she hasn’t somehow severely reduced the banana flavor.
Key Ingredients & Omissions:
Most of the ingredients in this recipe are pretty accessible and easy to find. Malted milk powder seems like an obscure ingredient, but I actually found it pretty easily on the aisle with the maple syrup, cereal, and other dry milk products at the grocery store I frequent. The recipe also calls for dark rum, which can be substituted with extra banana or milk. I went ahead and got some rum despite not being a drinker because I hadn’t read that far into the recipe when I got the ingredients. One note on the bananas is that the recipe says they should be ripe but not speckled. I think as long as they are still relatively firm and mostly yellow on the outside they should work fine in this recipe. Finally, make sure you leave your eggs, butter, and sour cream out to fully come to room temperature before starting. I left mine out for about 7 hours.
Tools:
Hand Mixer
Whisk
Large Skillet (preferably Non-stick)
8x8 baking pan
Cooking Review:
Prep & Bake Bananas: 26 minutes
To prep, I preheat my oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and put 3 of the bananas on a foil lined baking sheet. While it came to temperature, I brushed my baking pan with some softened butter and lines the bottom and two opposite sides with a single continuous piece of parchment paper, brushing it with more softened butter. I also cut up one stick of butter into smaller pieces and set it aside. Once the oven was hot, I put the bananas in the oven for 20 minutes to roast. I let them cool for a few minutes after they had become nearly black.
Caramelize Bananas: 24 minutes
This is the hardest part of the recipe. You will definitely want to use a nonstick pan or skillet, as the melted sugar in this step will stick and eventually burn if you’re not careful. After splitting the remaining 3 bananas in half lengthwise, I heated my pan, which is not non-stick, and sprinkled 3 lines of sugar, a tablespoon each, in the shape of the bananas. I topped each line with the bananas, peel side up and peel still on. After a few minutes, they will start sizzling and the sugar will start to melt. Once the sugar had turned golden brown (3-5 minutes), I transferred the bananas to a plate, caramel side up. Try your best not to let the caramel side touch the plate, as it will stick. If you’re not using a non-stick pan, you’ll want to clean out the pan before you do the other 3 halves of the bananas to prevent the older sugar from burning. This can be done while the other 3 bananas are baking. Finally, I arranged bananas in the bottom of my prepare baking pan and removed the peels. You’ll probably need to break up a couple of the bananas so that they all fit.
Mix Wet Ingredients: 7 minutes
Once the roasted bananas had cooled enough for met to handle them delicately, I used a paring knife to cut them open and a fork to transfer the flesh to a cup measure. I ended up using all of the bananas to get one cup. Try your best to leave all of the liquid on the tray. Next, I transferred the bananas to a medium bowl and mashed them up before adding the rum, sour cream, and vanilla extract, whisking to combine.
Mix Dry Ingredients: 10 minutes
In a large bowl, I mixed the regular and dark brown sugars together using a whisk. The rest of the dry ingredients were added next and whisked until combined. My malted milk powder had some lumps, so I took some extra time to break them up by hand.
Make Batter: 9 minutes
To make the batter, I added the butter to the dry ingredients along with half of the banana mixture and used a hand mixer to combine them until thick and glossy. Next, I added the eggs and the rest of the banana mixture and mixed using the hand mixer until the batter was smooth and a little fluffy. I poured the batter over the bananas in the pan and wiggled the pan to get an even surface on the top.
Baking & Cooling: 50 minutes + 1 hour 30 minutes
I baked the cake for 50 minutes. After 45 minutes, I checked it and the center seemed pretty wobbly, but a metal skewer came out clean. The recipe says the center should be springy and a cake tester or toothpick should come out clean. I touched the top and it did spring back when I touched it, but I gave it another 5 minutes in an attempt to be safe since it looked so jiggly. After those 5 minutes, I tested it again and the center seemed less jiggly, so I took it out and let it cool in the pan for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, I put a cooling rack on the top of the baking pan and flipped it over to release the cake. I removed the pan and peeled off the parchment paper to let the cake cool completely. After coming back to the cake later, it was clear that the center hadn’t cooked all the way though, as it began to form a depression in the center. Also, when I transferred the cake to a plate, I could see wet batter coming from the middle. I would err on the side of cooking this cake longer just to be safe and really make sure it’s fully cooked through.
Malted Cream: 6 Minutes
To make the cream, I added the heavy cream to a bowl along with the malted milk powder, sour cream, and powdered sugar. I used the whisk on the hand mixer to beat it until it formed very soft peaks.
Analysis:
Despite the difficulty and the disappointment of the cake not being fully cooked at the end, I really enjoyed this cake. The banana flavor is great and you can get it from both the caramelized banana on top as well as the cake itself. Somehow, this cake tastes like there’s more going on flavor wise than just the bananas, though. It’s probably a combination of the rum, malted milk powder, and roasted bananas that adds a depth of flavor to this cake. The cream certainly has an interesting flavor thanks to the malted milk powder and sour cream, giving it a tangy and malty flavor. Personally, I think I would prefer a simpler cream that just has a little sugar added, but It does fit with the cake. As with most recipes from this Claire Saffitz, the sweetness level is just right. The texture is nice, as well. In the parts that were fully cooked, the cake was still moist and tender. I also like the jammy-ness that the caramelized bananas provide. I’m going to give this recipe a 8/10. There are some tricky parts to it, but If you get passed them without a disaster, you’ll end up with a very tasty cake. It’s really just the caramelizing of the banana that’s hard. I might have just had a lapse in judgement when it came to the cake doneness.
