The Wayne to my Garth

everything you need for one hell of a banana cake

Bananers. What a complex relationship I have with this delicious fruit. So tropical, so tasty, so yellow, yet so mushy. The saga begins.

FACT: I actually prefer unripe bananas to ripe, you know, I enjoy them very much.

FACT: I hate watching people eat bananas, I find it disgustingly reminiscent of mushy baby food and the sound effects are truly grotesque. 

FACT: I recently made an outrageously delicious, mouth watering banana cake. 

FACT: The bananas for said cake were mushy and brown and all the things I find unappealing about bananas and it was damn tasty.

FACT: 

The wonderful Chelsea (we'll call her wayne for short) has an affinity for this yellow fruit & I miss her like the dickens (she's living on the other side of the world) thus the idea for this cake was born. 

See, this is a post of honest truth. No fiction here. I could lie and tell you I only ate one slice of this seemingly innocent cake? There's your fiction, enjoy that one with a glass of milk.

More about the cake...

This banana cake was a real success, It was packed with banana-ness but not at all too sweet. I paired it with a cream cheese frosting but chocolate would be nice too. And here's how to make it:

Bring me your ingredients, your measuring cups, your bowls, your spoons & your mixers...

Sift your dry ingredients

Whip up that butter and sugar. Whip it good?

mush up those naners! its gross but just get your paws in there and go to town

Add the eggs, and the dry ingredients, and the naners, and the buttermilk to the butter/sugar mix. Everyone in the pool!

note: this is not the final consistency, I added the dry ingredients before the buttermilk & bananas. The final product was much wetter though still quite thick

At some point you should roast up some walnuts if you're into that sort of thing. For these guys I just coated some raw walnut pieces in powdered sugar, sprinkled with kosher salt and popped 'em in a 350°F oven until they got some color and were nice and toasty...15 minute maybe?

Bake the cakes as per the recipe below.
When they're done take them out and let them cool. When they are no longer warm, pop 'em out of the pan and level off the tops.

Now you just gotta frost the cake! The best way to do this is to first spread a thin layer of frosting on the cake and then let it harden in the fridge so you don't get crumbs all in the frosting.

Before I frosted the outside of the cake I did a nice layer of the cream cheese frosting in between the two cakes and then stacked them.

Last but not least, crumble up those walnuts and sprinkle them however you please.

And then eat a slice!

adapted from David Lebovitz, recipe here*

1 1/2 cup AP (all purpose) Flour
1 cup whole wheat Flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
6 tbl buttermilk
1.5 cups mushed bananas, the riper the better

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (325°F if you have convection) & butter the bottom and sides of two 9-inch round cake pans, then line the bottom with circles of parchment paper
2. Put the butter and the sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer, throw on the paddle attachment & mix the ingredients together until they have fluffed up. This will take around 5 minutes. 
3. Meanwhile mix the flours, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, & salt and pass it through a sieve into a separate bowl
4. Back at the mixer, add the eggs one at a time until each is completely mixed in
5. Next, switch to a lower speed and mix in half the dry mixture followed by the buttermilk & the bananers and then the rest of the dry mixture
6. Mix until it has all come together but not much longer. 
7. Pour the mixture into the two pans and bake for about 35 minutes. Check the middle with a toothpick/cake tester before removing it from the oven

*I didn't use the exact recipe, though I'm sure it would be scrumptious as is!

1 8oz pack of cream cheese, I use neufchatel cheese...because well, I think it's swell

1 stick of butter, room temperature (not warm!!)

2 cups of powdered sugar

1. Put the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and mix on medium speed until it's smooth with no lumps
2. Add the cream cheese and mix again until smooth
3. Slowly add the powdered sugar in increments
4. Spread on cake or eat with pretzels. whaaaattt