TWD: Black and White Banana Loaf

Well, here it is, Tuesday again, and we all know what that means. Another Tuesdays with Dorie baking adventure! This week's assigned recipe was Black and White Banana Loaf, chosen by Ashlee of A Year in the Kitchen. I wish I had an interesting banana story or kitchen disaster tale to tell you to make this post a little more interesting, but I don't. Even though, many of my fellow TWD bakers reported having issues with this recipe, I did not. Good for me - bad for you, because that makes for a post a little on the dry side. Fortunately, that doesn't apply to the cake itself, which was very moist and tasty!

Actually, it was a lucky thing that I didn't run into any problems while making this recipe, as I didn't get around to baking it until two o'clock this morning. Yeah, you read that right. 2:00 a.m. I know, I know, I must be insane, but it really couldn't be helped. I was out of town most of last week, and we had houseguests over the weekend who didn't leave until yesterday. Then, I had a pile of work to catch up on at the office, errands to run, clothes to wash, dinner to cook and dishes to wash. Before I knew it, both the big and little hands on the clock were on the twelve. Are you feeling sorry for me yet? When I finally got around to making the loaf, my butter was rock hard and the rest of my ingredients were ice cold. It took another hour before everything warmed up and I was actually able to whip this baby up. It took an hour and forty minutes to bake, so you see, there was no room for error.

This Black and White Banana Loaf is a very dense brick of a cake flavored with chocolate, rum, and of course, bananas. Half of the banana cake batter is mixed with melted bittersweet chocolate and the two are swirled together for a marbled effect. I was leery about the marbling part. I've never had it work for me, but somehow, this time it did. I wish I could tell you how I did it, but by the time I got to that part, I wasn't even sure where I was, much less what I was doing! Just trust me. It worked.

I stayed pretty true to the recipe. The wee hours of the morning is not my most creative time. The only adjustment I made was with the bananas themselves. Instead of using regular yellow bananas, I used these cute little red ones that I found at the market. Why? Because they were there and happened to be just at the right level of ripeness. Also, because my weekend guests ate the other ones. I don't think it made much of a difference, though.

We cut a few slices off for breakfast this morning and it was good. Not great, but "just right with a nice, hot cup of coffee" good. It wasn't my favorite Dorie recipe, or my favorite banana cake recipe, but I liked it.

If you'd like to see some other versions of this Black and White Banana Loaf, check out the Tuesdays with Dorie Blogroll. If you'd like the recipe, you can find it on Ashlee's site. Stay tuned for next week when the recipe du jour will be Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream. I'm really looking forward to that!