Brazilian banana and chocolate chip tapioca cake - gluten free

This cake is a Brazilian love affair, made with tapioca flour (a staple in Brazil), bananas (10% of the worlds banana's are produced in Brazil) and chocolate (Brazil being the 6th largest producer of Cocoa bean in the world) this cake is my World Cup recipe. Personally I can't stand football and I would rather watch paint dry so I thought I try to get in the spirit of things by baking a cake that takes it inspiration from the country of Brazil.

Bahia, Sao Paulo, Brasilia are all mentioned in the classic track by "Brazilian Love Affair" by George Duke which I recall being played over and over by elder soul / jazz funk loving sister when I was a child and it all seamed so exotic and tropical, so here are some of the flavours of Brazil in cake form.

Happily for me Tapioca flour is naturally gluten free so is a great flour to be baking with here, fairly easily obtainable mail order or in your local health food shop.

This image is an image of an image of the cake on a tablet pc, Mr Lancashire Food being very creative ! when it comes to food photography.

What you need

• 2/3 cup tapioca flour
• 1 1/3 cup brown rice flour
• 3 large ripe bananas - mashed
• 1/2 cup oil - Coconut oil is nice but regular sunflower would work here too
• 1 cup soft brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (cardamon would also be good)
• 2 eggs - free range
• 1/2 tsp vanilla paste
• 1 bag of dark chocolate chips (I always toss in a little of the flour to prevent them from sinking too much)

This recipe makes 2 x 2lb loaf tin cakes, I used the ready to use liners but you could lightly oil and base line instead.

What you do 

• Pre heat the oven to 180c 
• Whisk up the sugar, eggs and oil until light and frothy, add the rest of the ingredients except the choc chips.
• Stir in until you have a smoothish mixture and then stir in the choc chips 
• Pour in the prepare tin, smooth level and bake for 50 - 55 minutes until golden and test cooked with a skewer
• Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes or so in the tins and then remove to a cooling rack.
• The flavour of the cake develops more fully the day after baking.

A delicious cake inspired by Brazil, it has a wonderful crumb structure and is not dry or gritty as often cakes containing rice flour can be. 

I'm adding this post to Bake of the week over on Casa Costello