Chocolate Espresso Banana Cake. Delicious snack cake features brown sugar, ripe banana, crème fraiche, vanilla bean paste, brown sugar espresso cinnamon filling, and brown sugar cinnamon streusel.
This is a great coffee cake. Its moist, tender, and full of brown sugar cinnamon flavor. Not really a dessert cake, its perfect for brunch or snacking. Takes a little time to put together, and bakes for an hour, but the results are worth it. The cake has a rich flavor profile with banana, chocolate, banana, espresso, brown sugar, and cinnamon all melding together.
There are three components to this cake. The cake batter, the cake filling, and the cake streusel. Preparing the filling and streusel ahead of the cake batter is the best course of action. The filling is comprised of 4 ingredients – brown sugar, ground cinnamon, cocoa powder, and espresso powder. They are added to a small bowl, and stirred or whisked to combine.
The streusel is slightly more work, but still pretty simple. Brown sugar, all-purpose flour, ground cinnamon are added to a small bowl and stirred or whisked to combine. Cold butter pieces are “cut in”, using the back of a fork or a pastry blender. This process breaks the butter into very small pieces coated with the streusel mix, and when baked creates a lightly crunchy topping for the cake. The streusel should be chilled until ready to use.
The cake batter starts with a mix of all-purpose and cake flours, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt. This is whisked to combine and set aside for a few minutes.
Unsalted butter is creamed with brown sugar, and granulated sugar. The butter and sugars are combined and beaten at medium speed for around 3 minutes to aerate the butter, making the mixture light and fluffy. The bubbles created in the butter by the sugar grinding against it, capture the gas created by the leaveners, helping the cake to rise and creating the crumb, or the tiny holes in the cakes texture.
Eggs are added to the mix, one at a time, followed by mashed banana, and vanilla bean paste. The mixture is beaten just long enough after each addition to incorporate the ingredient.
Now that all the wet ingredients are well combined, we add the flour, the crème fraiche, and the remaining flour mix just long enough to incorporate it. We do not want to over mix at this point as this leads to gluten creation and that will make the texture tougher, or chewier. Often, when I get to this step in a recipe, I will pull the stand mixer bowl off its stand and mix the dry ingredients in with a large spatula.
Half the cake batter is transferred to a parchment lined 9-inch round springform pan or baking pan. The batter is spread evenly across the pan with an offset spatula. The filling is sprinkled over the batter. A knife is used to swirl the filling and incorporate it into the batter. The remaining batter is spread evenly over the filling. The streusel is sprinkled evenly over the top of the cake. The cake is baked in a preheated oven for about an hour. After 50 minutes or so, I will begin checking the cake to see if it is done, and repeat every 5 minutes or so. If a toothpick or sharp knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, the cake is done. This cake usually takes a full hour to bake.
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Chocolate Espresso Banana Cake
Equipment
- 1 (9-inch) springform pan OR (9-inch) round baking pan
Ingredients
Brown Sugar Cinnamon Streusel
- 100 grams light brown sugar (1/2 cup)
- 65 grams all-purpose flour (1/2 cup)
- 7 grams ground cinnamon (1 tablespoon)
- 70 grams unsalted butter (5 tablespoons), cold and cut into small cubes
Brown Sugar Espresso Cinnamon Filling
- 70 grams light brown sugar (1/3 cup)
- 3 grams ground cinnamon (1 teaspoon)
- 3 grams unsweetened cocoa powder (1 teaspoon)
- 7 grams espresso powder (1 teaspoon)
Banana Cake
- 160 grams all-purpose flour (1-1/4 cups)
- 120 grams cake flour (1 cup)
- 7 grams baking soda (1 teaspoon)
- 3 grams baking powder (1/2 teaspoon)
- 2 grams fine sea salt (1/4 teaspoon)
- 113 grams unsalted butter (1/2 cup), melted
- 100 grams light brown sugar (1/2 cup)
- 100 grams granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
- 100 grams egg (2 large), room temperature
- 1-1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (3 medium to large)
- 7 grams vanilla bean paste (1-1/2 teaspoons)
- 120 grams crème fraiche or sour cream (1/2 cup), room temperature
Instructions
Brown Sugar Cinnamon Streusel
- Add all-purpose flour, brown sugar, and ground cinnamon to small bowl. Stir to combine. Cut the cold butter cubes into the dry ingredients using the back of a fork or a pastry cutter until the mix resembles wet sand. Place bowl in refrigerator and chill until ready to use.
Brown Sugar Espresso Cinnamon Filling
- Add brown sugar, ground cinnamon, cocoa powder, and espresso powder to small bowl. Stir to combine. Set aside.
Banana Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan or 9-inch round baking pan with parchment paper.
- Add all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, and fine sea salt to small mixing bowl. Whisk to combine. Set aside.
- Add melted butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar to stand mixer. Beat on low until smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating on low for about 15 seconds after each addition.
- Add mashed bananas. Beat on low until well combined.
- Add vanilla bean extract. Beat until incorporated.
- Add 1/2 the flour mixture to stand mixer. Beat on low only until incorporated. Add crème fraiche. Beat on low only until incorporated. Add remaining flour mixture. Beat on low only until incorporated. You do not want to over mix, once you start adding the flour into the batter.
- Transfer 1/2 the banana cake batter into the prepared springform pan. Sprinkle cinnamon filling over batter. Using a knife, create swirls in the batter. Top with remaining banana cake batter. Smooth top with offset spatula. Sprinkle chilled streusel evenly over top of cake.
- Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes. Insert toothpick into center of cake. If it comes out clean, its done. Otherwise, test again every 5 minutes until done baking.
- Remove from oven and cool on wire rack 1 hour. Remove sides from springform pan and cool completely.
