Banana Coffee Time Cake

There are always extra bananas in the kitchen. I love a good afternoon coffee or tea with a piece of cake. Banana Coffee Time Cake is an easy one that uses egg whites to lighten the cake at the end. It’s one of those cakes scratched on a recipe card that women would share before cookbooks and blogs. I like this one because it has walnuts instead of chocolate chips. It’s lighter and daintier when served as an afternoon snack.

Who remembers all the recipe cards we kept? Do you still have them? I do. Cookbooks, recipe cards and any method of recording food gives us insight into lifestyles and foods of a certain period. I wonder what the world will think of Covid 19 recipes? For sure people are cooking more at home.

The First cookbooks

I always find it interesting to do a little research. The first recorded recipes are from the upper class. They were the ones with the means and time to record recipes. I think that’s why my nonna had no measurements. It was a little bit of this and a little bit of that. One of the earliest cookbooks was written in the 2nd Century in Greece. For some quick information go to: https://www.britannica.com/topic/cookbook

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs (separated)
1/3 cup melted butter ( let it cool)
1/2 cup chopped nuts ( i used walnuts, but pecans are also nice)
3 medium bananas mashed
icing sugar for dusting

Process

Preheat your oven to 350F and grease an 13 X 9 cake pan. In a large bow beat the sugar, slat, milk, vanilla and egg yolks until thick and creamy.

You can see the creaminess.

Mash the bananas and chop the nuts.

Stir in the mashed bananas and chopped nuts into the liquid mixture.

Next pour in the melted, cooled butter and beat on medium until blended. Add the flour and baking powder and beat on low until smooth. Whip the egg whites and fold them into the mixture.