The recipes for Banana Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting come from the excellent cookbook ‘Rosie’s All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed Baking Book’ by Judy Rosenberg, a well-known Boston baker. This rich, moist cake is baked in a 9 x 13″ baking dish and can be frosted with Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe below) or simply coated with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar. There a quite a few steps involved – read over the entire recipe and get organized before you begin. Great cake for entertaining at home or to take with you.
Ingredients for Banana Cake:
2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
5 tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. buttermilk, room temperature
3/4 cup mashed bananas (about 2 very ripe bananas, with brown peel)
10 tbsp. (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
6 tbsp. vegetable oil
3/4 cup (lightly packed) light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 recipe Cream Cheese Frosting, optional (the frosting is amazing!)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13 ” baking pan lightly with butter or oil. (note: I like to line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and then lightly grease bottom and sides, on top of the paper).
Sift both flours, baking soda, and salt together into a small bowl and set aside.
In a second small bowl, stir the buttermilk into the mashed banana and set aside.
Cream the butter, oil, both sugars, and vanilla in a medium-size mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Add eggs one at a time to the butter mixture and mix on medium speed after each addition until blended, about 10 seconds. Scrape the bowl each time.
Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients with the mixer on low speed, and mix for 8 seconds. Scrape the bowl. Add 1/2 of the banana mixture, mix 10 seconds and scrape the bowl. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and rest of the banana mixture and mix for 10 seconds. Scrape the bowl and stir the batter several times by hand to mix thoroughly.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake on the center oven rack until the top is golden, springs back to the touch, and a tester inserted in the center comes out dry, 30-35 minutes. Place the cake on a rack to cool completely.
Note: I made this cake with the frosting, refrigerated it overnight and cut the cooled cake into squares just before serving – the squares were perfect and it tasted fabulous.
Eat as is, dust cooled cake with confectioners’ sugar or frost with Cream Cheese Frosting:
10 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp. heavy whipping cream, room temperature
Cream the cream cheese, sugar and butter in a medium-size mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed unti light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Scrape the bottom and side of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
With mixer on low speed, add the cream in a stream and mix until it is incorporated. Scrape the bowl.
Increase the speed to medium-high and beat the frosting until it is light and fluffy, 5-10 minutes. Stop to scrape the bowl several times with a rubber spatula. Keep the frosting at room temperature until you are ready to frost the cake, a maximum of 1 hour.
Makes: 2 cups