This Easy, Ultra-Moist Chocolate Cake Takes Just 5 Minutes to Prep

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Why It Works

  • A small amount of espresso powder adds extra depth to the chocolate flavor.
  • Coarsely mashing the bananas allows some of the fruit to get incorporated into the batter while leaving some distinct morsels strewn throughout the cake.

I’ve had an impossibly busy last few weeks—shoots, travel, prep, more shoots. Last Tuesday, I returned from a week-long trip at 3:00 am. Eager to make the most of my “day off,” I promptly woke up 4 hours later, went to yoga, spent hours sifting through receipts and Excel spreadsheets, trying, in vain, to get my life in order. When I walked in the door at the end of the latest long day, I realized that the carefully applied triple layer of concealer had all been for naught: Madame Tussauds’ wax couldn’t hide these skim milk blue under-eye circles and jaundiced pallor. But the show must go on.

I’ll admit that many of my cakes are unapologetically complex—multiple layers, long lists of ingredients, candy thermometer-required meringue-based buttercreams. But, on these days of exhaustion, I’m prone to mixing up simpler batters that don’t require a trip to the supermarket or the strength to drag my heavy KitchenAid stand mixer out. All I want is to have my cake.

Enter this chocolate banana cake: large bowl, whisk, ripe (in my case, forgotten and aggressively freckled in black) bananas, and done. The inspiration comes from other simple, mix-by-hand cakes I’ve published before, because, be you a bedraggled mess like me or a lazy lady or gent in search of instant gratification, this cake is just right, and no one needs to know what little effort went into it.

Start by dumping butter, cocoa powder, water, and espresso powder in a saucepan and cook just until melted. (For all the mocha haters, the amount is just enough to bolster the cocoa, it will not impart distinctive coffee flavor.) This method cuts out that annoying purgatory that is waiting for butter to come to whippable consistency. Combine dry ingredients, then stir in the chocolate mixture, plus the usual dairy ingredients. Bananas come into the mix coarsely mashed so the resulting cake is pudding-rich and moist, with small, soft morsels of ripe bananas. Chopped walnuts add a meaty bite, and the overall effect is that of a banana split in cake form (do add a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you want the whole shebang).

Easy, peasy, no? And just the thing to get you out of your exhausted funk.

August 2012

This Easy, Ultra-Moist Chocolate Cake Takes Just 5 Minutes to Prep



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  • Baking spray

  • 113g unsalted butter (8 ounces; 2 sticks)

  • 42g natural cocoa powder (1 1/2 ounces; 1/2 cup)

  • 7g (1 tablespoon) instant espresso powder

  • 1 cup (240ml) water

  • 283g all-purpose flour (10 ounces; about 2 1/4 cups)

  • 426g dark brown sugar (15 ounces; 2 cups)

  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use half as much by volume

  • 340g coarsely mashed ripe bananas from 3 medium bananas (12 ounces; 1 1/2 cups)

  • 113g sour cream (4 ounces; 1/2 cup), at room temperature

  • 3 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten

  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

  • 57g walnuts (2 ounces; 1/2 cup), chopped

  • 7g (1 tablespoon) confectioners’ sugar

  1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Using baking spray, grease Bundt pan. In a medium saucepan, combine butter, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring with a heat-proof flexible spatula, until mixture is homogeneous, about 2 minutes.

  2. In a large bowl, whisk flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to combine. Whisk in cocoa mixture, followed by bananas, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla, until smooth. Using a flexible spatula, fold in walnuts.

  3. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until tester inserted in center of cake comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

  4. Transfer cake to cooling rack and cool 10 minutes, then invert directly onto rack and cool to room temperature, about 1 hour. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar using a fine-mesh strainer and serve.

Special Equipment

Bundt pan, small saucepan, whisk, cooling rack, fine-mesh strainer

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