Brown Butter Wholemeal Roasted Banana Crumble Cake

I had been attending yoga class which was run by a mission group and felt like I wanted to bake something for them as a gesture of thanks. Since I thought that yoga teachers are a health-conscious lot, leftovers won’t do and I need to start from scratch. I don’t know if I can do chocolate or really decadent dessert (after all, it is not for me to eat!), so I opted for banana cake.

Having tasted banana cake in Singapore, I know most varieties are light and fluffy. I wanted something more substantial, so I decided on a crumble. Deriving my inspiration from Baking Bites and Guilty Kitchen, I decided what would be better than brown butter banana cake and brown butter roasted banana bread would be...brown butter wholemeal roasted banana crumble cake! I've either become bananas or a genius!

Here’s how I did it:

Brown Butter Wholemeal Roasted Banana Crumble Cake

The cake:
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 very ripe medium-sized bananas
2 cups self-rising flour
3/4 cups wholemeal flour
3/4 cup drained yogurt

The crumble:
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tablespoons melted butter

The topping:
Butterscotch sauce (recipe here) mixed with melted white chocolate

1. I made the crumble first by combining the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter, and mixing them until it resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 175 degrees celsius.
3. Place bananas (whole with the skin) on an aluminium foil on a baking tray (because when the bananas roast, some parts of it bubble out) for 15-20 minutes in the pre-heated oven.
4. In the meantime, grease a 9-inch tube pan.
5. In a small saucepan, melt the butter in a saucepan over the stove on medium-high heat until the butter boils.
6. Turn heat down to medium. You will see that the butter start to bubble or foam, but just keep swirling the pan but do not stir.
7. As the butter begins to turn brown, you will see specks of darker brown develop at the bottom of the pan, then stir these up. When the butter has turned into a nice and even dark honey color, remove from heat and transfer to the mixing bowl to cool for about 10 minutes.
8. Check on the bananas, they should be roasted by now.
9. Peel off the skins from the bananas and mash them.
10. In the mixing bowl with the browned butter (which should have been cooled by now), add sugar gradually.
11. Beat in the eggs one by one, waiting until each has been incorporated to add the next.
12. Add in vanilla extract and mashed bananas.
13. Add half of the self-raising flour to the butter mix and stir to combine. Add in the yogurt, followed by the remaining flour mixture.
14. Pour batter into prepared pan.
15. Sprinkle the crumbles over the cake.
16. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed. If at any time you feel the crumble is starting to brown too much, cover it with aluminium foil.
17. Allow cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then place cake out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
18. Put the butterscotch sauce in a small plastic bag or Ziploc and cut the edge of one end off. Squeeze the bag and make loops on top of the crumbles, both for decoration and helping the crumbles stay on the cake when you cut the cake later.

What would The Failed Chef do next time?

• If I were to do it again, I need to remember the steps were quite laborious (can we say making it made me go bananas?)! This is really a labour of love - resulting in a very satisfying and tasty result though.
• As I only had self-raising flour, I wonder if next time, I should get baking powder for the wholemeal flour that I used. I felt using wholemeal flour made the cake a lot denser although it lends a more complex texture.
• It is better to add the crumble with the cake batter and then cover with aluminium when needed, rather than half-way through baking because it seems to stick to the cake better.