let's go bananas! recipe: steamed banana cake .. apam pisang!

 I love bananas! Especially the lemak manis variation. When I was small, they were aplenty back in my kampung. The ready to eat variations inclusive of lemak manis, emas, rastali. Those that should be somewhat undergo any of the cooking process (fry, steam, bake) Actually you can just eat them directly but somehow they are better cooked  - abu, nangka, berangan, siang. Pisang siang is actually a very local name. It has other name some other places but I just can’t recall at this point. Pisang nangka is my least favored variation coz it has a hint of sourness. Though I can be such sour-grape at times, me and sour-ish food just don’t agree with each other most times.

Now that we live in KL, our banana pick are limited to berangan and emas most of the times. We buy Dole’s few times. It’s expensive and almost tasteless. A blessing what, when you don’t like something that is expensive he he. Whenever we go balik kampung, Mok would keep few sikat of pisang lemak manis (few combs of bananas? my children are confused) for us. Mother, you see, they always remember what your favorite food are, and somewhat their cookings always taste better than ours despite using the same exact recipe. Mok’s fried kembong are always better than mine. Talk about air tangan huh. 

Anyway, my children carry my genes in this banana quarters. They love banana. But still sometimes we have leftover. These leftover normally ended up on the table as cokodok, Choc Banana Cake and Apam Pisang. The first time I did Apam Pisang, sangat bantat okay. Kecut beyond words. Lucky that I have Adam, he ate few cuts, perhaps to jaga hati Ummi. Awww,.. now how can a 5yo boy can be so sweet… The rest masuk Cik Tong sampah. I googled for explanations and from readings I can safely conclude that, always ensure your mixing bowl is completely dry when you have eggs as one of the ingredients. Second time, I made sure the bowl and other utensil used were completely dry and poof! Hasilnya cantik naik kembang setaman. Too bad I used Dole’s so rasa agak hambar…

Last Tuesday I realized we still have few bananas in the fridge. The skin was all brown and black already. After few intimate minutes with Mr Google, I decided to do Apam Pisang, or nama lebih orang putih, Steamed Banana Cake.

Original recipe Apam Pisang from Noorsha. I did mine with a bit of alteration. For Apam Pisang, IMHO it is best to use the sweet variation of banana (lemak manis, emas, berangan, rastali).

Ingredients
2 cups mashed banana (yield from about 5 bananas)
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp milk powder
1/4 cup corn oil


- mix all ingredient, add a little water if the mixture too thick
- spoon into small cup
- steam for 10-15 minutes (depending on size of cup)

 Here's mine. Err.. they were not supposed to bloom like that actually.

but, who cares? :D