Well, I have completed my September mission of trying a new recipe from Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot. The recipe called to bake the "cake" for 45 minutes. This seemed too short a time to me considering any "loaf" shape I've made is usually ready in over 60 minutes. Usually 70 minutes easily. I poked a cake tester in there and it was still goopy so I kept adding 10 minutes and checking. In the end I had the banana cake in there for 65 minutes. So he loses points for accuracy of baking time. As well, in his cookbook, the picture clearly shows a loaf shaped banana cake. Technically that's "banana bread" to me. A cake is usually a shallower pan and indeed takes less time to bake.
The flavour was good but I felt the texture was too gummy. I'll wait until the next day to see how it ages. The recipe also called for sour cream or yogurt in the batter. My own tried and true recipe doesn't call for the addition of this ingredient. I don't think it adds anything in terms of flavour. The crumb was very moist of course due to the dairy but I noticed that the slices fell apart very easily and didn't hold up as well as my banana bread. I suppose that's why he calls it a cake.
My verdict: it's good but not the best I've had. I'm not going to be using it again because I don't want to have to go out and buy sour cream or whole milk yogurt just to make this cake. And that's not even considering going to a specialty market to buy the baby bananas. However, it is a nice change of pace and my mom would like it because she enjoys "wet" cakes/desserts.
Review: 3.5/ 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment