First, the back-story. We recently have enjoyed making simple pumpkin muffins using this 2 ingredient recipe. Actually, I think I saw it on facebook first, and it said to use a yellow cake mix. I used the yellow cake mix, but I added pumpkin pie spice to the batter and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top before baking. The next time I made them, I added chocolate chips. Then we tried a chocolate cake mix, with chocolate chips. I haven't yet tried a carrot cake mix or spice cake mix, but we will soon. It's easy to experiment with the recipe, and everyone has enjoyed them. The tops are usually a bit lumpy looking, but they taste delicious!
Now fast-forward to this week. I had 3 over-ripe, squished bananas I needed to bake with. I put them aside until I had time to make banana bread with them, but finding time when all the stars (aka the kids, the dishes, the chores, the oven, and mom's energy) aligned just right was difficult. Finally yesterday I wondered if I could find a 2 ingredient recipe using bananas. I googled but didn't find that. I found recipes that used cake mixes but they still had additional ingredients like sour cream (which I didn't have), eggs, oil, water, etc. I picked one that didn't use sour cream and decided to give this banana cake recipe a try.
Of course, I had to tweak the recipe. I didn't want to add extra brown sugar because I though that would be too sweet. But I was craving chocolate, so I though I'd add chocolate chips and skip the cinnamon. When I looked at the cake mixes, I decided to try a chocolate cake mix instead of just adding chocolate chips. Then I realized I had several red velvet cake mixes that were expiring soon and needed to be used. But red velvet banana seemed weird and not chocolate enough. So in the end, I decided to add chocolate chips and a bit more cocoa powder to the red velvet cake batter.
In the end, my own recipe looked like this:
Banana Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cake
Ingredients:
1 package red velvet cake mix
3 squashed over-ripe bananas
3 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 rounded Tbsp. cocoa powder
5 oz. mini chocolate chips (1/2 a bag)
Instructions:
Mix all ingredients together in a mixing bowl, on medium speed. Spray a 9x13 pan with baking spray. Pour batter into pan. Bake approximately 35-40 minutes. I checked it at 30 minutes and took it out about 8 minutes later. Cake is done when toothpick inserted at center comes out clean (except for melted chocolate chips) and when the cake quickly springs back up after you press a finger gently on its top.
So it may sound a little weird (even to my own kids), and it may surprise you to see red velvet and smell banana ... but it tastes really good. We did not add frosting to the cake. It didn't need it. It was moist and delicious and chocolate-yummy!
Will we do it again? Yes, until I run out of red velvet cake mixes that need to be used up. But I probably won't set out to buy a red velvet cake mix for it. I'll just use an actual chocolate cake mix instead.
My kids are giving me a hard time about my kitchen experiment. I jokingly told them that if they had a problem with my banana red velvet chocolate chip cake, they didn't have to eat it. They ate it ... every one of them. I think they enjoyed it, too.
So if you're googling for recipes using bananas and red velvet cake mix. Here you go! If you're not ... just try it with a chocolate cake mix and skip the extra cocoa powder. It's delicious!
April E.
