Last week, Sobey's had their baking bananas on sale for 29 cents a pound, so I stocked up. I saw this recipe on Pinterest (yes, I'm addicted to that website) and thought it looked delicious. I mean, it's bananas. Cake. CREAM CHEESE. Bring it on!
Here's the thing - I am generally one of those obnoxious people who choose a recipe, realize I don't have x, y, or z for it, substitute a, b, and c for said ingredients, and so on, and so forth. This time I was determined to make this exactly the way it should be. Here is the recipe:
http://www.bakeorbreak.com/2011/12/banana-cake-with-cream-cheese-frosting/
The only thing I ended up changing was adding more icing sugar to the icing, because it was very runny.
However, I balked a bit at the oven temp - 375 for a cake...? I should have listened to my gut, because the cake ended up overdone on the edges and slightly underdone in the middle. Grrr. So if you decide to try this recipe, drop your oven temp to a maximum of 350 and try that.
HOWEVER! Despite not baking up perfectly, the taste is really, really wonderful. We all really like this cake and I'll be trying it again. And! It's easy-peasy!
Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.
Four tablespoons of butter at room temp is next:
Put the butter and 3/4 cup white sugar in your bowl/mixer and cream them together.
Next you'll need three eggs - two of them whole, and one requires just the white.
Beat them in one at a time, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla as well. You're almost done!
Grab four very ripe bananas:
Mash them up and mix with 1/4 cup of milk. Doesn't that look lovely?
Blend half of the flour into the butter/sugar mixture.
Chuck in all of the bananas:
Blend that, then add the rest of the flour. Blend and you're DONE.
Pour into a greased 8x8 pan and chuck it in the oven. A cooler oven. For at least 40 minutes.
I am not one of those moms who is concerned about cake batter, so here you go, kid:
The icing is easy-peasy, too! All it takes is 1/2 a block of cream cheese at room temp, a splash of vanilla, and a few cups of icing sugar.
Ignore my cracked bowl. It has been well used.
Result? Yummy, yummy banana cake. Even if it's a tad underdone.
I also made lasagna for supper last night. Excuse my bragging, but I make absolutely fantastic lasagna. Needless to say, by the time we were done the lasagna and cake, we were all stuffed to the point of misery. And I had a very happy husband, who adores both lasagna and cake. I'm not normally a cake person, but this appealed to me because it is dense and moist; I don't like fluffy cakes as a rule because they remind me of cake mix cakes, and I vastly prefer homemade.
Anyway, give it a try! It's a lovely cake, easy, tasty, and appeals to everyone. Except my dad, who hates bananas. But I bet he loves my lasagna.
