Rhinoceros & Other Banana Coffee Cakes
“[Powerful noises of moving rhinoceroses are heard, but somehow it is a musical sound. On the up-stage wall stylized heads appear and disappear; they become more and more numerous from now on until the end of the play. Towards the end they stay fixed for longer and longer, until eventually they fill the entire back wall, remaining static. The heads, in spite of their monstrous appearance, seem to become more and more beautiful.]”
Have you ever looked at the cover of a book and thought, “I need to read this in a café?” Because that’s the thought that ran though my head when I got my hands on this book. (Side note: I bought this one second-hand, so I don’t know who wrote “Chuculate” on the bottom… I’m assuming it’s a last name since most people will do that to prevent classmates from stealing their copy.)
It looks high-brow.
It sounds like it should be sophisticated.
It’s actually really weird.
Ionesco was considered an absurdist master. So, I should have expected the weird. My cover makes it look so normal, though.
Rhinoceros is a play about a world where, one day, people start turning into rhinos. People keep changing until only one man, Berenger, is left.
It sounds simple and fun, but this play is heavy. There’s a lot going on just under the surface.
There’s fear and desperation. There’s defiance and danger.
It’s about the human response to change. How we react and how we don’t. What we do when the world is coming down around us.
It’s about conforming and how brute force can make people change their views/ positions.
It’s about the human capacity for cruelty.
It’s something that always seems to be relevant, even though it was written nearly 60 years ago.
My first thought was to do something with a banana, just because of the yellow on the cover (it’s all over the back cover too). I thought about banana bread, but I wanted to transform it into something else since that was the whole point of the play.
I wanted to make it into something that’s usually dense, since the book is so heavy. Something that crumbled like their world. Something that screamed café.
Coffee cake.
I decided to put it in a bundt pan because I think bundt pans are weird. They’re pretty, but I’m not entirely sure why so many people think they’re better than regular cake pans/ bread pans.
I could tell you that I decided to put the streusel on the bottom, creating an upside-down coffee cake, to represent my refusal to conform, just like Berenger. In reality, I just didn’t feel like following instructions, so I didn’t read them, and accidentally made something different. Which is also very fitting for this play.
Banana Cake
-5 large bananas, which should have brown spots all over the peel (you want them very ripe)
-1 c white sugar
-1/3 c unsalted butter, melted
-1 egg
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp baking powder
-2 c all-purpose flour
Peel the bananas and mash them in a large bowl until there aren’t any chunks left. I used a potato masher, since that’s quick and easy.
Add the sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda mix them in.
Mix in the butter.
Whisk in the egg.
Whisk the flour into the batter, half a cup at a time.
Pour half of this batter into a greased bundt pan, you can even do a little under half.
Center Streusel
-1/4 c light brown sugar, packed
-1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
Sprinkle the mixture all over the batter in the bundt pan.
Pour the rest of the batter on top
Streusel Topping
-1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
-3/4 c light brown sugar, packed
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-1 tsp salt
-1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cold and cubed
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
Using your fingers, squish the cold butter into the dry ingredients. You shouldn’t have any chunks of butter when you’re done, but you will have clumps of streusel.
Sprinkle this on top of the batter. If you want a traditional (non-upside-down) coffee cake, make this streusel first and put it in the bundt pan before you start adding the batter. So this would be your first step, rather than your last when it comes to adding things to the bundt pan.
Bake the cake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes. The streusel should be firm and the cake should be set. You can always use a toothpick to check, if you aren’t sure.
Let the whole bundt cool, then flip it over to remove the cake. If you went the traditional route, you would just leave it flipped like this. Since I didn’t, I flipped the cake once more to put the streusel on top.
Eat your cake. Feel sophisticated. Contemplate humanity.
Think about rhinos. (Seriously though… they’re nearly extinct.)
