Verdict: An edible bribe

It turns out that Kathryn is working from home this week, so I couldn't give her her cake. So instead, we (the post-docs) ate it instead. And actually, it was quite a lot better than I'd thought - yes, it wasn't exactly an inspiring cake, but it was good. I overdid the chocolate a bit, but not horrifically so, and there was enough banana in it to give it a subtle fragrance, so all in all, it was a pretty decent cake. Nothing terribly exciting, I'll grant you, but enjoyable at least.

Bribery

There are a lot of problems with bribery around the world. There are so many corrupt officials, corrupt police and corrupt politicians, that even when it happens in western Europe where it's not nearly as prevalent in other parts of the world, people are so used to it that they either don't ask questions, or fail to ask the right ones. And here's one of those burning, never-asked questions: Why doesn't anyone ever seem to be caught accepting a bribe in the form of cake? I think it's evidence that this is a sure-fire way to dodge the law, and it's a way to offer (and accept) bribes without any risk of being caught.

I'm in a position where I need to bribe our workshop technicians and our lab secretary into helping me get stuff done quickly, so what better than a banana and chocolate cake?!

An Edible Bribe
Ingredients
(This will make two cakes - halve the amounts to make a single cake!)
For the cake

• 350g Butter
• 350g Caster sugar
• 5 Eggs
• 1tbsp Vanilla extract
• 3 Large bananas (375g peeled weight)
• 375g Plain flour
• 4 tsp Baking powder
• 250g Chocolate chips

For the ganache

• 300ml Double cream
• 400g Dark chocolate

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.
2. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
3. Mash the bananas in a separate bowl, then beat into the cake mixture.
4. Fold in the flour, baking powder and chocolate chips.
5. Pour into two greased loaf tins and bake at 180C for 1 hour.
6. Turn out onto a rack to cool.
7. Heat the cream to scalding point in a pan.
8. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate has melted.
9. Allow the ganache to cool slightly to allow it to thicken. Smooth the ganache over the cakes and leave to set.

I'm not used to baking on this sort of scale... that's a heck of a lot of butter! (Banana for scale and tastiness). I could really have done with a food mixer for this...

Okay, it just looks like cake batter as it waits for the oven, but I think it looks pretty good!

Out of the oven, it's not terribly spectacular either. The top was a little over done, but not horrendously so. I snaffled a bit of one of the cakes that got stuck to the tin; it's pretty non-descript and not horrendously inspiring. But then it's freshly baked, home-made cake, so it's pretty good still, just also a bit boring.

Every cake is pretty if you cover it with ganache :D