Trying to Fall In Love

• @1humblepalateThis is a love story, or at least an attempt at one. You see, once upon a time, there was a young man who grew up with a serious distaste for one rather popular fruit.

Its popularity, which is still in question today, however, did not woo him to indulge in this ‘travesty’.

Bananas were this young man’s adversary, and no amount of concealing, manipulating or pairing them with other elements in a bid to disguise their flavour, would change his stance.

That young man was and still is me, and like most people, there is one food or group of foods we cannot stand to consume. The popular ones are mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs, pawpaws, avocados, onions, beetroot, liver, kidney, gizzards, and beans.

This list alone makes many cringe. My list is very small. I try to be quite open-minded when it comes to food.

One thing I will tell you though is I will not deny before trying, and unfortunately for them, bananas did not pass the test.

I used to have issues with maize meal, which was somehow allergy-connected, but then something changed, and pap is now a regular in the house, and when I say regular, I mean once a month.

This dislike, however, does not deter me from being able to cook with said hated ingredients, and today’s recipe is an example of this. Many home cooks find it hard to cook with ingredients they cannot stand the sight, smell and taste of, but that should not put you off from preparing masterpieces that will put a smile on someone’s face.

My banana-carrot hybrid cake was not for my consumption, but a culinary journey I took on behalf of my mother, whose incessant desire for cake manifests in cries of “please” on a daily basis.

And as the elders used to say, “it takes a village”. This recipe was edited and formulated through friends coming together and sharing what they like about banana cakes or breads.

I needed all the help I could get. And the people delivered.

After preparing this cake, I took a bite, albeit with my eyes closed. It was actually very good.

I avoided the banana pieces wholly and the flavour was not overbearing. I think I sort of fell in like with banana cake.

I have the carrot to thank for that.

So, as you dive into this amazing recipe, keep an open mind about cooking with ingredients you’d rather not even pick up at the shop, and even if you don’t eat what you prepare, someone around you definitely will.

Ingredients:

375 g all-purpose flour

10 ml (2 teaspoons) baking powder

10 ml bicarbonate of soda

5 ml ground cinnamon

3 ml salt

375 g sugar

4 eggs, lightly beaten

375 ml (1 1/2 cups) sunflower oil

5 ml vanilla extract (essence also works, but the real stuff does the thing)

250 ml (1 cup) grated carrots

250 ml (1 cup) chopped walnuts, optional

2 bananas, sliced lengthwise

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