Banana Spice Cake

Happy new year everyone! Are you ready for 2013? Well, let's have some cake for starters. I have a rich and spicy winter cake for you. The recipe comes from the TV series "Myriam und die Meisterbäcker" which was broadcasted on Swiss TV during December. Tanja Grandits suggests to make your own spice mixture. And let me tell you, it's totally worth the effort. I guess you could also use the store-bought ground spices, but the result would be somewhat different flavorwise. Besides, it occurred to me this morning that roasting and grinding spices is a wonderfully comforting thing. As was Myriam's TV series. It can still be accessed online. If you are as fond of baking as I am, watch it. Makes you happy - I guarantee you that!

Recipe
(slighly adapted from: here)

225g ripe bananas (peeled)
225g brown sugar
2 eggs
150g melted butter (room temperature)
60g walnut oil (I used sunflower oil)
225g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 vanilla pod (scraped out seeds)
some butter for the pan

For the spice mixture:
4g star anise (whole)
4g cinnamon stick
1g cloves (whole)
2g black pepper (whole)
1g cardamom (whole)

For the spice mixture, roast all the spices seperately in a large frying pan without oil. Then, put in a mortar and grind until you got powder and mix together.

For your cake, line a 20cm square cake tin or a 24cm diameter springform pan with parchment paper and grease with butter. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Put sugar, eggs and the mashed bananas into a large bowl and mix with your electric hand mixer until well combined. Add the vanilla seeds and the lemon zest and mix well. Add oil and butter and combine. Then, sift in flour and baking powder. I took two teaspoons of the spice mixture and also sifted it in. Add the salt. Mix until you have a smooth dough.

Pour your batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 35 minutes (my cake took about 45 minutes). As usual, check with a wooden skewer whether the cake is done. If the inserted skewer comes out of the cake clean, it's done.

Sift together some of your leftover spice mixture and some sugar and sprinkle over your cake.