South African Banana-peanut Cake Is Super-easy.

I make three different ethnic banana cakes, and South African banana-peanut cake is the easiest--about the same difficulty as banana-nut bread.

It may look plain, but you can add ice cream or whipped cream.

If you grind the peanuts almost to a paste, they contribute an interesting taste to South African banana-peanut cake.

You can almost spread these ground peanuts.

What you need:

2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/3 sticks butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup salted peanuts, finely chopped

To begin, sift together flour, powder, salt, and soda.  I didn't want to dirty my sifter, so I used 2 forks and lifted and lifted all the ingredients in the bowl.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. 

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one.  Add dry ingredients, alternating with mashed banana and mixing after each addition just until incorporated.  Stir in half the ground peanuts.

Fill greased loaf pan or 9" ring pan.  Sprinkle the 2nd half of the peanuts on top of your South African banana-peanut cake, and bake in 350 degree oven for 50 minutes-1 hour or until the toothpick comes back clean.  (Mine was done in 50 minutes.)

Wait  ten minutes before removing from pan to cooling rack.  Loosen sides with a knife with thin, flexible blade.  I have a butter knife that came with my knife set.  You can see how flexible it is.



A flexible blade won't hurt my non-stick surface.

If you don't have one like mine, you may have to use an ordinary butter knife, but be careful not to scratch your ring with non-stick surface. When completely cool to touch, cover and refrigerate at least a few hours or overnight. It really tastes best cold.

Now all you need is ice cream or whipped cream to really enjoy South African banana-peanut cake. I'll take some Paul Simon music with an African flair with my South African banana cake.