Honey Apple Banana Cake

For Ross' birthday, I made a new cake that turned out surprisingly well.
This cake is surprisingly healthy in that it doesn't contain any butter or oil!

Check it out.

I started by preheating the oven to 205C/400F.
Then I took my handy apple cutting device.  I pulled back the peeling bit so that just cut and cored, but didn't take the skin off.

 I used it to cut up 3 apples (I sort of wish I'd used 4).  After I pulled the apple coil off the device and then sliced it down the middle so I had a bunch of little curved pieces, which I scattered on a large baking sheet.

Next I drizzled honey all over the slices.

I also took a cap full of vanilla extract and drizzled that too.

Then I put the apples in the oven for about 10 minutes.  Oh, how heavenly it smelled!
While this was going on I set out my over-ripe bananas to thaw.  (If a banana in our house gets the wrong side of ripe, I just throw it in our freezer and then I can defrost it when I want to bake something banana-y.)  There were actually 3 bananas, but I took this picture after I'd already peeled one.

Once my bananas thawed, I peeled them and put them in a large bowl.

Then I used a whisk to mash 'em up real good.

Then I added 1/2 cup of sugar.

And mixed it in with the mashed bananas until it was nice and blended.

Next I added a 1/4 cup of honey.

And then 2 eggs.

Then 1 3/4 cups of plain flour.

By now my apples were done.  This is what they looked like when I pulled them out of the oven.  I then turned down the heat to 175C/350F.

Then I added 1 tbsp. of baking powder.

and a pinch of salt

And a teaspoon of cinnamon

and a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg and mixed it all together until it was smooth!

Next I used coconut oil instead of butter to grease the cake tin.  This is another healthy tip, as coconut oil is INSANELY good for you.  (It can also be used as a fabulous skin moisturiser!)  Don't worry, though it smells  pretty strongly of coconut, it doesn't make the cake taste of it at all.

Next I put my cooked apple slices on the bottom of the pan.  Here's where I should have used fewer slices, unless I had used 4 apples, and then I could have used a few more.

I poured the batter in the tin and then used the rest of the slices to make a pretty flower design on the top of the cake.  Again, it would have been much prettier if I'd had even more slices.  Then I put it in the oven for one our and 10 minutes.

The cake came out looking very nice and smelling fabulous.

I'd say that many people wouldn't have thought this cake was very "birthday-ish", it is almost like a breakfast cake.  It's spicy and dense.  It stayed moist for several days and Ross loved it!

Happy baking!

(Recipe adapted from this recipe.)