Kilby Austin's Accidental Chocolate Banana Cake with Cheating Chocolate Ganache

The story of my kitchen is much like the story of my life: "Ooh, that would be interesting, I'll try that." Thankfully, as my life has thus far not run into too many irrevocable misfortunes, my palate has not yet been utterly ruined by the continual stream of accidents coming from my oven. (Though I can remember a few brick breads in the recent past…)

Today, it was my failure to look at a recipe first while attempting to cook from a recipe. And now you know why I hate cooking from recipes. I had seven black bananas to use up before we leave on holiday in a week, and the obvious choice was banana bread--lovely, moist banana bread, ideally, flecked with chocolate chips, but here I've found that I can simply split the batter, add cocoa powder to half, and marble it. Well, to make a long story short, let's just say I didn't look at the recipe and wound up with slightly off proportions…slightly off…with a slightly loose definition of slightly…

So my next thought was brownies, but it was too late: I'd already added the baking powder. When it came out of the oven, it had puffed into the loveliest, softest chocolate cake you've ever seen, but nothing even anywhere near akin to brownies, in all their gooey glory. I despaired.

But suddenly I remembered the four guests coming for dinner and the lame plan I had concocted of serving them the last stale oatmeal cookies for a farcical dessert in a thinly veiled attempt to use up the rest of the food I've got stored in the house before leaving. By a trick of imagination, the failed banana-bread-turned-banana-brownies-turned-banana-cake became chocolate cake simply by the addition of icing.

Here's where it gets good: I also had a little tub of sweetened condensed milk in the fridge, too little to use for any decent recipe, too much to just eat up with a spoon. Well, for any normal human being to eat up with a spoon. Anyway, I decided maybe I could just add cocoa powder to that caramelly sludge…

And miraculously, it worked. It took two tablespoons of cocoa, thirty seconds in the microwave, and my banana chocolate cake is covered with thick, creamy chocolate ganache, the biggest cheat in the history of cooking.

So here's what I'm pretty sure is the recipe.


Chocolate Banana Cake
7 ripe or overripe bananas, mashed
1 cup sugar
.5 cup butter, softened or melted
4 eggs
.25 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1.5 cups flour
Preheat oven to 400º and grease or butter a 9x13 casserole or cake pan. Mix together bananas, sugar, butter, and eggs till well combined; stir in cocoa powder. Sift together dry ingredients, then add. Pour batter into pan, bake for 30 minutes, or until risen and set.


Chocolate Ganache
6-12 ounces sweetened condensed milk
1-2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
Microwave the sweetened condensed milk on high for thirty seconds, then stir in cocoa powder with a spoon. Spread over the top of any cake for quick frosting.