Rice Cooker Banana Cake

You've heard of people baking bread, chocolate cake, brownies, etc. in the rice cooker, right? I've been really intrigued with this method for a while now, so I decided to test it out. I actually baked this banana cake in a rice cooker.

This is just a regular whole wheat banana bread recipe that I like, but I adjusted it by adding some yogurt to make it more moist. To be honest, this experiment was not entirely successful for me. I have 2 rice cookers in the kitchen currently, one for cooking brown rice (for myself who likes brown rice) and one for cooking white rice (for others who likes eating white rice) ^_^. One of the rice cooker is more modern, with a timer that you can set to cook congee or other things for an extended period of time, and the other rice cooker has only a switch for cooking and keeping warm.

Anyway, since the batter I made was way too much for rice cooker baking (the recipe was for regular baking in a loaf pan in the oven), I decided to divide the batter in half, one for each cooker, so that it'll bake faster.

This successful cake picture is from the modern rice cooker. And the one from the other cooker? Well, it was burnt (badly)! It was my fault actually. The switch from that rice cooker flipped from "cook" to "keep warm" after just 7 minutes! I didn't believe the cake was actually cooked, so to "override" the control button, I held down the switch by plugging in some paper towels. Very high tech. After a little while when I was cleaning up the kitchen mess, I smelled smoke... Wha??

Ahh, my burnt cake! :(

If you're wondering how I got the cake to be nicely caramelized like that in a rice cooker, it's because I put it under the broiler for 3-5 minutes after the baking. I think this saves more energy, because you're cooking in a smaller enclosed space, as opposed to heating up a big oven. Though, turning on the oven to bake on a cold winter day does make the house feel nice and cozy.