Rokolectiv, the festival for electronic music and related visual arts which takes place annually in Bucharest, turns 10 this year. And I honestly don’t know when that happened. It seems like only just yesterday My Robot Friend epically ended the festival’s first edition, back in 2005; here‘s a small suggested re-enactment of that.

Rokolectiv means a lot of things to me, it’s about two very passionate and persistent people that started this and kept on rocking, the endless queueing at the entrance and toilets, great visual identity (every time) and fantastic music, all mixed in the wonderful haze my twenties have been. And seeing how Rokolectiv has grown over the years, I’m looking forward to showing up and dancing for the next ten years and more.

Since it’s a pretty big deal for me, I was quite stoked when they asked me to make a cake to mark their 10 year anniversary. And I was also nervous because I had never in my life baked a cake for 100 people. And I decided to style it according to this year’s visual, made by Nona Inescu, a lovely mess of glitched ice-cream and frosting. And it was pretty awesome that Nona was there and came backstage while I was assembling the cake, artistically directing me while I was performing a manual glitch with whipped cream frosting.

I went for a banana cake recipe that I use frequently, because it’s moist and it doesn’t need layering. It’s also a crowd pleaser, so it was the obvious choice. To make a cake for 100 people, that weighed a little over 10 kilos, I made 12 batches of my initial recipe. My recipe calls for oat flour, but for the big cake I used regular flour, because I needed it to be taller. I recommend the gluten-free version, it’s lighter and overall tastier. The recipe below will make a cake that serves 8-10 people.

Banana Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting

1.5 cups oat flour (or all purpose flour)

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup coconut sugar (or any other )

50ml/¼ cup coconut oil, melted

2 free-range eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 large bananas, mashed with a potato masher, not blended

50gr/½ cup shredded coconut

For the Frosting

250ml/1 cup whipping cream, unsweetened and made from full-fat milk

4 tablespoons honey

Preheat the oven to 180c/350F and grease an 20cm/8in cake tin. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment or with the aid of a hand-held mixer, beat the oil with the sugar and the eggs until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the mashed bananas and with a spatula, mix until combined. Add the shredded coconut and mix. Next, add the flour mixture and mix with a spatula just until combined. Do not over-mix. Pour in the greased cake tin and bake for about 30-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle emerges clean. Check the cake after the first 10 minutes of baking and cover with tin foil if browning too quickly; mine always does.

To make the frosting, whip the cream until soft peaks form, then slowly add the honey while mixing and beat until stiff peaks form. Once the cake is completely cooled, decorate with the whipped cream and serve.