Ethapazham also known as nenthrapazham is a type of banana fondly loved by malayalees. 3 ethapazhams sat in the fruit bowl with its skin all black and about to start rotting in a day or two. My mother-in-law, who dint want to throw it away, asked whether we can make a cake out of it. I said I’ve never heard of a cake made with ethapazham and left it. Thinking about it further, I thought I should just try. Appa and amma encouraged and we decided to go forward with it. I took a normal banana cake recipe and started. I had to alter the quantity of some of the ingredients, replace one ingredient with another etc to get the cake batter consistency right and we baked it. Appa, amma and my husband liked it ! So I thought I should share it here as well 🙂

Ingredients

• 3 over ripe plantains
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup oil (any vegetable oil- I used rice bran)
• 1/2 cup yoghurt
• 1/4 cup sugar for caramalising
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 cups all purpose flour / maida
• 1.5 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs powdered cinnamon
• 1.5 tsp vanilla essence

Method

• Caramalise 1/4 cup sugar. Melt the sugar in a hard bottomed pan on low flame till it turns a dark brown colour. Pour 1/4 cup of boiling water and keep on flame again till all the sugar and water combines into a clear liquid. Keep aside till it cools completely.
• Steam the plantains till its soft. De-seed and cut into small pieces and keep aside.
• Beat the eggs well. Add vanilla essence, granulated sugar, oil, cooled caramel and yoghurt and beat till well combined.
• Now add the plantain pieces into a mixer blender and convert it into a smooth paste. Add the paste into the egg mixture and beat till well combined.
• Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.
• Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently fold in.
• Preheat the oven at 180 degree C for 10 minutes.
• Prepare a cake tin, add the batter and gently tap on the countertop till the batter levels out uniformally.
• Bake for 40 to 45 minutes.

The plantains we had were very sweet and over ripe. So the sugar added was just right. You can also add cashews, walnuts or chocolate chips to make the cake more rich. I would choose just dusting icing sugar on top to any other kind of frosting. So next time you want to upcycle those poor ethapazhams, try this out and let me know how you like it !