Reprinted with permission from Third Culture Cooking by Zaynab Issa. Abrams Books. 2025. Photo credit: Graydon Herriott.

Rotting bananas had a constant presence in our kitchen island’s fruit bowl. My mother, who is adamant against food waste of any kind, would absolutely never throw them away. Instead, she’d pull out her Betty Crocker binder, remove the banana bread recipe, and hand it over to one of my sisters, usually Fatema, who’d always add chocolate chips in addition to the recipe’s recommendation for chopped walnuts. There’s still no banana bread recipe I prefer more than that one, and believe me I’ve tried to develop a better one.

This banana cake, however, is different from basic banana bread. Slightly more airy and spongy in texture, it doesn’t have the denser crumb structure of a typical loaf cake. So, when I find myself staring at some near-rotten bananas sitting on the counter, I’ll make this cake instead of a regular old loaf (sorry, Betty). The tahini fudge couldn’t be easier to make and has the most luxurious mouthfeel while maintaining those nutty, chocolaty flavor notes from the original inspo. If you love chocolate fudge sauce, double the recipe and keep some in the fridge to reheat for later and enjoy with vanilla ice cream and flaky sea salt.

Serves 8 to 10; 1 hour

INGREDIENTS:

*INSTEAD OF . . .

• Unsalted butter, use salted butter; reduce the salt in the recipe to ¼ teaspoon
• Semisweet chocolate chips, use bittersweet chocolate
• Tahini, use natural peanut butter

METHOD:

To make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line the bottom and sides of an 8 × 8-inch baking dish with parchment paper.

Mash the bananas on a cutting board with a fork. You should have about 1 cup of mashed banana (about 215 g).

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt in a medium bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl using a stand or handheld mixer on medium speed until pale and airy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until well combined. Add the vanilla and bananas and mix until combined. Add the dry ingredi-ents and mix until no spots of dry flour remain. Scrape the batter into the baking dish; smooth out the top with a spatula.

Bake the cake until a tester inserted into the center comes out mostly clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool the cake to the touch in the pan, about 20 minutes. Invert the cake onto a plat-ter and remove the parchment paper. Turning the cake bottom side up ensures a nice flat surface for glazing.

Meanwhile, make the tahini fudge: Pour the heavy cream and ¼ cup (60 ml) water into a small liquid measuring cup and set aside. Combine the chocolate chips, sugar, and kosher salt in a small heavy pot. Place the pot over medium-low heat and add a few tablespoons of the watered-down heavy cream. Whisk until the chocolate chips have melted (it’s OK if the sugar is still grainy at this point). Keep adding the heavy cream, a few tablespoons at a time, stirring constantly until incorporated before adding more. Once all the heavy cream is combined, add the tahini, continuing to whisk.

Keep cooking, whisking often, until thickened but still pourable. This whole process usually takes 6 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a heatproof jug or jar. Set aside until ready to use.

Pour the glaze over the cake and spread to the edges with an offset spatula. Sprinkle with flaky salt and sesame seeds. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, if you’d like.

Both the fudge and the cake can be made up to 2 days in advance. Keep the fudge in the fridge and reheat it in 20-second increments in the microwave. Wrap the cake very well in plastic wrap and store it at room temperature. Assemble just before serving.

Zaynab Issa is a recipe developer, food editor, content creator, and Bon Appétit contributor. After working on a self-published zine that formalized her family’s East African Indian recipes, she began freelancing at Buzzfeed and contributing culturally rooted recipes and stories to Bon Appétit and Food52.