Banana Coffee Cake With Chocolate Chip Streusel

Another recipe from Epicurious, which I found to make use of the six slowly rotting bananas sitting on our kitchen counter top. I don't know what in this recipe is a Vegetable, and it's Saturday, not Tuesday, but I'm for. I'm for love.

Again, the original recipe, followed by my modifications and then thoughts.

Original: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/BANANA-COFFEE-CAKE-WITH-CHOCOLATE-CHIP-STREUSEL-107629

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips (about 8 ounces)
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 1/3 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 large)
3 tablespoons buttermilk

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 8x8x2-inch metal baking pan. Stir chocolate chips, brown sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon in small bowl until well blended; set streusel aside. Sift all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, room temperature butter, and egg in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in mashed bananas and buttermilk. Add dry ingredients and blend well.

Spread half of batter (about 2 cups) in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle with half of streusel. Repeat with remaining batter and streusel. Bake coffee cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool coffee cake in pan on rack.

Modified version (What I made):

Following the advice of the reviewers on Epicurious, I doubled the cake recipe for a 13x9x2 pan and 1.5 timed the streusel recipe. I lowered the sugar in the cake. We didn't have any cinnamon, so we substituted other spices, and I used sour cream instead of buttermilk.

Ingredients

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (about 8 ounces)
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Generous dashes nutmeg, cardamon, ginger, and allspice
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/8 cup sugar
1 cup (2 stick) salted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
2 2/3 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 6 large)
6 tablespoons sour cream

This took about an hour to bake at 350. When it came out, we ate it after it cooled it for about 15 minutes.

This cake is very moist. When it came out, it had a denser bottom layer, perhaps this comes from something in the mixing procedure. The streusel makes this cake very sweet, even with lower sugar, but it adds some interesting flavor, especially with our spice changes. The cake by itself is tasty and I might make it again with a less sweet streusel with some butter in the actual streusel itself.

I like a regular coffee cake better, but I would make this recipe again if I was having company for breakfast or I had six bananas hanging around waiting to be used. It is certainly delicious.