Bizcocho

A healthy loaf cake with a moist texture and a strong peanut butter flavor. Definitely not for everyone, but I'm crazy about it. These flavors are addictive for me and I can't really hold back. The good news is that the ingredients are healthy and, even though we can't really call it diet food — especially because of the peanut butter — we know it's a pretty moderate treat.

I got the recipe from @petit_fit's Instagram profile, but I tweaked it a little. Here's my version. Hope you like it.

Ingredients

• 3 ripe bananas
• 50 g (1.75 oz) honey
• 40 g (1.4 oz) extra virgin olive oil
• 50 ml (3.5 tbsp) milk
• 1 egg
• 4 tablespoons peanut butter
• 175 g (6 oz / about 1.75 cups) ground oats or oat flour
• 50 g (1.75 oz) pure unsweetened cocoa powder
• 5 g (1 tsp) baking powder (Royal-type)
• A pinch of salt
• A couple of squares of dark chocolate and some oat flakes (for topping)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F).
2. Mash the bananas in a bowl with a fork and add the wet ingredients (honey, milk, oil and the lightly beaten egg).
3. Stir until everything comes together.
4. Add the dry ingredients (oats, cocoa, salt and baking powder) and mix well.
5. Grab a loaf pan (plumcake-style) and grease it with a bit of oil.
6. Pour half of the batter into the pan and drop two tablespoons of peanut butter on top. Then, using a knife, swirl the peanut butter into the batter to get a kind of marbled effect.
7. Add the other half of the reserved batter and another two tablespoons of peanut butter. Repeat the marbling process.
8. Finally, chop the chocolate into chunks and scatter them on top along with a few oat flakes.
9. Bake for about 45-50 minutes and it's ready to enjoy (technically you should wait for it to cool… I never can).

PiC Tips

• Try to use peanut butter that's 100% peanuts, with no added sugar, salt or weird stuff, because it doesn't need any of that. It's pretty easy to find this kind these days at Mercadona, Ahorramás or sports/nutrition supplement shops.
• Same goes for the cocoa. It's really easy to find pure 100% cocoa (I usually use Mercadona's store brand). Don't be fooled by advertising for "intense" cocoas because they tend to contain added sugars, sweeteners or even some kind of flour as a thickener.
• If you don't have oat flour but do have oat flakes, you can blitz them in a food processor or Thermomix. You can choose how fine you want them. In my case, I used roughly ground oats.
• As always, you can swap the honey for another sweetener of your choice, or for dates that have been soaked and blended into a paste. Also keep in mind that the riper the bananas, the more sweetness they'll add.

To kick off the weekend, the holidays, celebrate Madrid's La Paloma festivities… any excuse is a good one to bake this wonderful, fluffy cocoa cake. I got this recipe from Alma Obregón's blog and only made a few small tweaks (Cesmm always tells me I'm incapable of following a recipe to the letter… could it be true?). Made with pure cocoa instead of chocolate, it feels lighter, and the syrup on top is perfect for those who love bitter, not-too-sweet chocolate. Bundt cakes are those ring-shaped cakes with a hole in the middle. Technically, only Nordic Ware® brand cakes are bundt cakes, but the name is generally used for any cake of this shape. If you want to learn more about its history and even when its international day is celebrated, you can read about it here.

What do we need?

• 125 g (4.4 oz / 1 stick + 1 tbsp) butter
• 2 eggs
• 250 ml (1 cup) milk
• 360 g (1¾ cups) white sugar
• 60 g (⅔ cup) unsweetened pure cocoa powder (I use the Valor brand)
• 260 g (2 cups) all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt

For the syrup:

• 40 g (scant ½ cup) unsweetened pure cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons corn syrup
• 120 ml (½ cup) milk

How do we make it?

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Melt the butter in the microwave and once fully melted, add the eggs and the milk and mix well. It's best if the milk is at room temperature so the butter doesn't solidify into little lumps (if it does, it's not a big deal, the cake will be just as delicious).
3. In another bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together (sifted flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt).
4. Then add the wet mixture to the dry one and stir well with a whisk until you have a smooth, lump-free batter. You don't need to use an electric mixer, a hand whisk works perfectly.
5. Pour the batter into the previously greased pan (with a baking spray or with butter/margarine/sunflower oil) and bake at 180°C (350°F) for 45-50 minutes. You'll know it's done when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
6. Let it rest for at least 20 minutes inside the pan while you prepare the syrup.
7. For the syrup, mix all the dry ingredients in a small saucepan and then add the rest.
8. Heat over low heat and stir constantly until it thickens and reaches the desired consistency.
9. Once the resting time is up, unmold the cake and pour the syrup over the top. Enjoy!

Tips:

– You can easily find corn syrup in creative baking shops, which are popping up in more and more places. One of the most common brands is Karo, which is what I used for this recipe.

– As tempting as it is to dig in straight out of the oven, it's really important to let it rest. Otherwise, the cake will fall apart. So, patience…

– It's best to pour the syrup while it's still hot so it runs nicely down the sides of the cake, since it solidifies very quickly (it never goes completely hard, but it sets into a kind of gooey cream).