The Leftover Jumbanana

Jade and I have a love/hate relationship with leftovers. I mean we don't like throwing away leftovers but neither do we like consuming excessive quantities of them. Below are 4 items I found in dire need of using:-

Item A: 1/2 a tub of sour cream near expiry date left by Violet (current flatmate)
Item B: More bananas than anyone can count left by BC (also current flatmate)
Item C: A 250g bar of Nestlé's cooking chocolate bought on unknown date left in drawer by ex-flatmate
Item D: 1/2 a bottle of pouring/whipping cream nearing expiry date

So what does one do with such excessive fridge refuse? I initially intended to make a sour cream coffee cake but we only had high grade flour thanks to our bread-making household. As I read the description of high grade flour, I noticed that the manufacturers recommended making banana bread with it. So I decided to make banana the main ingredient instead of sour cream.

After what felt like an eternity of Googling, I managed to find a recipe procured from David Lebovitz and tweaked it, producing this:

Chocolate Chip Banana Over The Top Cake 


For the bottom of the rectangular, around 12 inches long pan:
2 ripe medium bananas

a few drops of lemon juice

For the cake:
1 1/2 cups (210 g) flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup (150 g) raw sugar

2 tablespoons (30 g) melted butter, salted or unsalted

1 large egg

1 large egg white

1 cup (250 g) banana puree (about 2 bananas)

1/2 cup (120 g) sour cream, regular or low-fat

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 bar of cooking chocolate roughly chopped/broken up

Chocolate Ganache and Cake Topping:
As many bananas that will cover the top of the cake

200 ml of cream (however much there was left in the bottle of 500 ml cream)

1/2 a 250g bar of cooking chocolate (100g) + about 3/4 a 250g bar of Whittakers Dark Orange Chocolate David was munching on and deigned to contribute (I sieved out the orange bits as I don't like orange chocolate myself but couldn't help leaving some in)

1. Grease the bottom of the pan with butter and line them with thickly sliced bananas. Sprinkle some lemon juice on them.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients for the cake together, make a well and pour in the wet ingredients. I used 2 eggs instead of a whole egg and an egg white since I had less than the required amount of sour cream.

3. Bake at 180°C for about 33 minutes (do the toothpick test!). Or if you're using a square 8 inch pan, bake for 40 minutes and it should come out brown and warm.

4. Leave to cool and use a knife to separate the sides of the cake, emptying it bottom side up out onto a plate like so (or if you're lazy just leave it in the pan and decorate it):

5. Thickly slice the bananas, enough to cover the top (or bottom) of the cake and squeeze more lemon juice on it.

6. Prepare the chocolate ganache. Heat the cream over low heat and melt the chocolate chunks. Stir until smooth and drizzle over the top of the cake.I had so much ganache I completely covered the cake. Sprinkle with some icing sugar and you have yourself a successful by-product of leftovers!

Boyfriend protested he would never touch leftovers and expired food but eventually managed to down three of these!