Banana cake with passion fruit icing

As some of you already know, I spent part of my vacation with my lovely and dear friend Valentina. We visited beautiful places, ate delicious food and had a wonderful time together – I miss her already! :D
I’ll soon post the photos on Flickr.

Not only is Valentina an amazing and generous friend but also a very skilled cook and baker – Trembom was the first food blog I ever read and the inspiration for me to create TK.
One of her recipes + a couple of bananas going more freckled than yours truly turned out into these divine little cakes.

Banana cake with passion fruit icing

Cake:
½ cup + 1 tablespoon (125g) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup + 1 ½ tablespoon - 150g – packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ cups + 1 ½ tablespoons (225g) self-rising flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 cup mashed ripe banana
½ cup (130g) plain yogurt
¼ cup (60ml) milk

Icing:
1 ¾ cups (245g) icing sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons passion fruit pulp, seeds included

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF; butter and flour a 15x25cm loaf pan or a 20cm round cake pan.*

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate. Sift the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg over the creamed butter and mix using a wooden spoon. Mix in the banana, yogurt and milk until combined, but do not overmix. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until cooked through when tested with a skewer (time may very if using 20cm round cake pan).
Remove from the oven and cool in the pan, on a rack, for 5 minutes. Unmold, transfer cake to rack and set aside to cool completely.

Make the icing: place all the ingredients in a heatproof bowl and place it over, but not touching, a saucepan of barely simmering water. Mix continuously until the icing is thick enough to be poured over the cake. Pour it over the cake immediately, as the icing sets quickly – you can cover the cake completely with the icing or only the top.

* I halved the recipe, used ½-cup (120ml) capacity mini loaf pans and got 7 little cakes

Serves 8-10