Eat your ice-cream, drink your cake!

We are banana people. We love bananas. Every trip to the grocer's would not be without us paying a visit to the banana aisle. It's a must-do, almost like a ritual - regardless of whether we still have any bananas at home - not much thoughts into what we'd be doing with all the unfinished bananas - we simply adore this long, yellow and cheap (less than a buck a pound) fruit! As of last weekend, we had about almost week-old bananas lying on the kitchen island, with a not-so-glorious-yellow hue anymore. So what did we do when we went grocery-shopping during the weekend? We bought another bunch of 8 bananas!
"I'll make you this grilled bananas dessert I made for the guys.....you'll love it!", D said to me at the banana aisle.
"But we still have leftover bananas at home!", I said.
"Well, you need firmer ones for the grill.....just buy it. I'll make it for after-lunch dessert today. I promise you, you'll love the grilled banana dessert!".
It's already mid-week, we did the grilled lunch on Sunday but I've yet to taste his grilled dessert!
Enter this lots-of-ways banana cake. I don't understand why but I have tons of cookbooks yet I only gravitate towards this for my recent bakes. I love experimenting and trying out new recipes, perhaps it was simply poor execution on my part but most of the other recipes I've tried, especially those down-to-earth, comfort-bake types came out short, be it in tastes, texture or pure expectations.

This is a highly versatile recipe -  after all, it's lots-of-ways banana cake! I used yogurt instead of coconut milk for a lower fat content and baked mine in the bundt pan instead of two 9" rounds. I still can't get over the wonder of my new bundt pan - the cake came out perfectly domed and left such a gratifying feeling as I cut into its perfectly-shaped ridges (in case you were wondering, yes, I'm one of those people who would straighten crooked pictures on the walls of not only my home, but public places every time I walk past!). From the 20th-25th minute mark or so in the oven, you'll start to smell the absolutely delicious aroma of baked bananas. This cake is moist, dense but lends a playful texture of soft crumbs, sweet, chewy raisins and nutty coconut flakes, two ingredients that I chose to add to the banana batter. The banana cake is great as-is and I could not think of any other changes I'd make to add to its greatness.....well, except for this: serve it with a good chocolatey icecream!
Double scoop of double-chocolate rocky road ice-cream served alongside a slice of banana cake; the slightly-warmed cake melted some of the ice-cream, creating a decadent puddle around it... voila! A different version of ile flottante, don't you think?

The soft banana cake soaked up the creamy chocolate ice-cream, rendering it almost a drinkable dessert. Slurp, slurp, slurp. Heavenly!
You can find the recipe by clicking on this link. Since this has not been covered in TWD, I started to type out the recipe, got a little lazy then decided to google and see if I could find a related post that I can just link to. Much to my surprise, I discovered this new baking with Dorie group and glad to know that they have actually baked this cake! My dear friend Tina is starting to venture into BFMHTY recipes and she'll be thrilled to know about this new baking group! Isn't the baking blogosphere such a wonderful community?!