Casual Cake?

Banana cake, is it just another way to use up old bananas or is it an excuse to buy a few extra bananas? I like to think it's a fabulous excuse to buy that bigger bunch of bananas. A good banana cake with some cream cheese icing hits the spot when a sweet snack attack occurs. This is great for a casual dessert when company drops by or just as a lovely addition to any picnic. It's a no frills dessert that banana lovers will gobble up. Sure you could dress it up with caramelized bananas or a Foster's sauce, but sometimes it's nice to have a simple cake with straightforward flavors. This is another one of my Gram's recipes that I've tweaked just a little bit and the recipe for the cream cheese icing can be found here (minus the coconut and nuts mentioned...well, I am not using them for this, but they certainly wouldn't be bad with this cake).

Gram's Banana Cake:

2/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 bananas, mashed
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
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-Preheat oven to 350f. Prepare two 9" cake rounds with a parchment circle on the bottom and pan spray on the sides and bottom.
-Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside.
-Stir the vanilla into the buttermilk, set aside.
-Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing to blend after each addition. Add the mashed bananas and mix to combine.
-Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternating between the two, starting with 1/3 flour, mix, add 1/2 of the buttermilk, mix, add another third of the flour, mix, add the remaining buttermilk, and follow with the last of the flour. Mix until the flour has just become blended in.
-Evenly distribute the batter into your prepared baking pans (I used a regular sized ice cream scoop to do this and got about 5 scoops per pan) and bake for 12 minutes, rotate the pans front to back and bake for another 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cakes are a nice golden brown and spring back when the top is touched lightly.
-Cool in the pans for about 5 minutes, then invert out of pans and allow to cool thoroughly on a rack.
-Prepare the cream cheese icing (you could use the recipe from the post listed above, or you could make your own, or even a simple icing of butter, confectioner's sugar and vanilla would work).
-Slice the layers lengthwise giving you four layers. Spread the frosting thinly between each layer, ending with a nice coating on top. You can also do the sides if you wish, I just really like the casual look without the sides coated in icing.
-Cut a big slice and enjoy with coffee, tea, milk, or whatever you like!

Happy Baking!

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