Amazing Banana Cake

This amazing banana cake recipe is one that is very close to my heart. It has absolutely nothing to do with gardening or healthy habits but it came from my Grandma who passed away when I was only 3 years old. I have only one memory of her from my childhood so whenever I make this I remember that memory and the stories of the memories of others.

Feeling a bit nostalgic today . . .

Use Your Imagination

Recipes back in the day sometimes left a little to the imagination. I think women believed that any good cook would just know certain things and so it wasn’t necessary to write them down. So here’s how I do this cake and, hopefully, it would meet with her approval.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Grease and flour a 9x13x2 cake pan. The recipe doesn’t say to do this but, sometimes, common sense prevails.

Sift together 2 3/4 cake flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 3/4 tsp nutmeg. Now here’s the thing about cake flour. I never have that in my house. So I learned how to improvise.

You can use regular all purpose flour by subtracting 2 Tbsp for each cup of flour. So this case, I measure out the 2 3/4 cup all purpose flour, them remove 5 1/2 Tbsp before I mix it with anything else. I’m sure cake flour has it’s purpose, but I think this cake turns out just fine without it.

Set aside.

Cream together 2/3 cup shortening and 1 1/3 cups sugar. Then add 2 well beaten eggs and mix well.

The original recipe says to mash up bananas to make 1 2/3 cup. I think this is a pain to do. I did it once and then improvised.

I have learned that 4 average sized bananas cut up into slices is what works for me. Mashing bananas is messy and then you have to clean the measuring cups. So 4 average sized very ripe sliced bananas is what I do.

Now start adding the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, alternating with banana, till it’s all mixed together, Then mix in 2 tsp vanilla.

Pour cake batter into the prepared cake pan and bake till done.

Grandma doesn’t indicate how long, but I can tell you it’s about 30 – 35 minutes or till toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Again . . . common sense cooking.

The other thing my grandma didn’t mention was what she put on top of the cake.

Over the years, I have used vanilla butter cream frosting or cream cheese frosting. Sometimes I top the frosting with chopped pecans or toasted coconut or just leave the frosting plain.

This time I tried something different.

I still had 2 more bananas I wanted to use up so I incorporated those into the frosting. I was a little afraid it would be too much banana but it turned out that it wasn’t at all.

So here’s the frosting recipe I used:

Banana Cream Frosting

2 ripe bananas
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp shortening
a little more than 1/2 pound powdered sugar.
1-2 tsp vanilla
Milk if needed (I didn’t need it)
Toasted coconut

Mix all the ingredients together with a mixer adjusting the powdered sugar or adding milk to get it to the consistency you like.

Honestly, I’m not even sure it’s necessary to add the butter and shortening. I just added a little of each because my daughter just couldn’t imagine frosting without them. So feel free to experiment with that!

Spread it on the cake. Top with toasted coconut if desired.

To toast the coconut, place desired amount on a cookie sheet and place in an oven preheated to about 350F just a few minutes till coconut begins to brown.

Let it cool before putting it on the frosting.

There is just no comparison between a cake made from scratch and a cake made from a mix. Not that mixes don’t have their place. I use them sometimes. But this banana cake is hard to beat. It’s super moist with just the right amount of density.

And so my Grandma’s legacy lives on in my kitchen.