I've had a nice short vacation this week, just what I needed to recharge for the next couple of months of courts, school and volunteer work. We spent the first 3 days in Sapporo Japan experiencing the extreme cold and the snow/ice festival. I gotta say you know the one thing that's a little unnerving about living in Japan? the amount of earthquakes and tsunami warnings we get. Try being on a ferry off the coast of Japan for 8 hours with a tsunami warning flashing on the t.v constantly. In Japan the minute there's an earthquake there will usually be a tsunami warning that follows, so they will put a small map of japan on the lower corner of every t.v. channel flashing either yellow or red with what areas are in potential danger for a tsunami. Totally didn't calm me nerves while I was on the ferry for 8 hours, so i decided to turn off the tv and sleep until we reached our destination. Thank goodness the boat ride was smooth and uneventful. The last few days this week have been spent at home unwinding and making some delicious recipes. I also wanted to share some pictures from Saporro Ice Festival, this is the biggest ice and snow festival in Japan.
Those are real fish and crabs in the ice
The snowboarding ramp was built right in the middle of the city in Odori Park
My Favorite snow sculpture and you can even see the guy on top still working on it
Back to the food, this is a nice healthy banana cake with coconut oil replacing the butter, some rolled oats added to the batter for fiber and of course gotta have some mini chocolate chips for a little indulgence.
I had some extremely rippen bananas that needed to be put to good use, I also wanted an excuse to use a cake pan and test my new cloth baking strips to see if they actually work, they are supposed to go around the outside of your cake pan and they help the cake bake even with a flat surface instead of a dome shape. I was pleasantly surprised that the cake came out pretty even, the strip prevented the sides from becoming to overly cooked and hard and for the most part the cake came out flat, with just a very slight dome. If I didn't use the strips I know the cake would have came out with a larger dome.
Chocolate Chip Banana Cake
Oishii Treat Original
Ingredients
1 1/4 flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 ripe bananas mashed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons skim milk
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line a 8 inch cake pan with parchment or wax paper and spray with baking or cooking oil on the sides of the pan. (to prevent the cake to sticking to the sides)
- In a small bowl combined your dry ingredients flour, baking soda, spices and oats and whisk until mixed together.
- In a electric mixer cream together the coconut oil and brown sugar, add in your egg, vanilla extract and mashed bananas. Mix until combined.
- Add half the dry ingredients + 1 tablespoon milk to your wet mixture and mix till combined. Add in the rest of the dry ingredients with the other tablespoon of milk and mix until the batter is fully combined.
- Hand stir in your chocolate chips and pour the batter into the cake pan and level in out with a spatula.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes and remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, remove cake from pan and let cool to room temp. or serve warm with some whipped cream and a tall glass of milk.
