Proudly Made in Africa (PMIA) is an Irish charity promoting Africa’s world-class products globally. They strive to promote ‘trade not aid’ messaging in everything they do and emphasise that creating sustainable African jobs is the best solution to African poverty.

Feena Kirrkamm, Head of Operations at Proudly Made in Africa, says: “We’re changing up charity. We empower African producers to trade their world-class products globally. The result? Sustainable trade, not aid. By supporting African producers, connecting them with buyers, promoting their products and educating consumers Proudly Made in Africa is empowering people.”

These innovative African businesses not only produce organic, fairly traded, environmentally friendly, award winning products but also support female empowerment in Nairobi Kenya and Tanzania, add value to improve livelihoods working towards living income and are leading habitat conservation efforts of the famous mountain gorilla.

PMIA supports, connects, and promotes these African businesses and now sells their products through the online store. Shop everything from organic teas, spices and cocoa beans to handmade soft toys, natural soaps, vegan certified and Great Taste Award winning chocolate and the world’s first Fair Chain coffee.

MIA Chocolate (Madagascar) is a luxury bean-to-bar single origin chocolate bar range. MIA is vegan certified and winner of 4 Great Taste Awards. MIA boasts unique flavours including Hemp and Almond and Baobab Salted Nibs. MIA was also recently named 3rd most ethical chocolate company in Europe by EthicalConsumer.org (Mars and Cadbury not even making the top 40). They scored high on issues of climate change and worker’s rights.

Shop here: Proudly Made in Africa online store 

Chocolate Swirl Banana Cake

Made using MIA chocolate from Proudly Made in Africa webshop.

Chocolate Swirl Banana Cake is very low in sugar and achieves a delicately fluffy texture without lots of butter. Besides being a guilt-free snack or treat, this cake is a great way to make delicious use of old bananas.

Prep time: 30 min Serves: approx 8

Ingredients:

• Butter (to coat pan)
• 90 g of all-purpose flour for the cake batter
• 90 g of all-purpose flour to dust the pan
• 75 g MIA 65% Dark Baking Chocolate or 75% Dark Chocolate
• 2 ripe bananas
• 70g of sugar (or equivalent alternative sweetener)
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ cup canola oil
• 2 large eggs
• ½ tsp salt
• 120 g plain yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Coat the inner surface of a 24 x 13 cm metal loaf pan (or pan of equal volume) with butter and dust it with flour. Remove the excess flour from the pan by turning it upside down.

2. Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie.

3. Mix the bananas and sugar in a bowl, mashing the bananas with a fork until the mixture is smooth. You can leave some small pieces of banana to give the cake more texture. Add the oil and eggs and mix together. Mix in the 90 g of flour as well as the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in the yogurt and vanilla. This is your banana batter.

4. Stir 1 cup of banana batter into the melted chocolate. This is your chocolate batter.

5. Fill the baking pan in alternate layers of banana batter and chocolate batter. Repeat the layers until all batter is used. Then gently swirl the batters together by running a butter knife through them.

6. Bake the cake until it is brown on top and a toothpick can be inserted into the centre and come out clean (approx 45 minutes).

7. Cool the cake in the pan for 20 minutes. Then turn it out onto a wire rack to finish cooling for another 20 more minutes. Serve warm or cool.