¼# (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs, separated (you know, yolks in one cup, whites in another)
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (fork ‘em, and don’t worry about a few lumps)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract (geez…use the real good stuff, please!)
Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe to follow)
2 firm, ripe banana sliced into discs
*optional: 1 ½ cup shelled (duh) chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350ยบ. Grease (use solid Crisco, not butter or oil) and flour two 9 inch layer cake pans.
Cream butter and sugar together. Add egg yolks and beat well. Add mashed bananas, mixing thoroughly.
Sift dry ingredients and add to butter mixture. STIR (don’t overdue it or you’ll have a brick, not a cake) until just combined. Add buttermilk and vanilla.
Beat egg whites to soft peaks (don’t whine…the last time I made this cake I beat the whites by hand with a whisk and it was the best Banana Cake I ever made). Fold GENTLY into batter.
Pour batter into prepared pans. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, till golden brown, and till cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool in pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Unmold and cool on rack for 2 hours.
When cooled, place one layer upside down on a serving plate and frost upside. Arrange slices of banana over frosting. Place second layer upside up and frost sides and top. Cover sides of cake with chopped nuts if desired, holding nuts in palm and pressing firmly to sides of cake.
Chill in refrigerator if frosting needs firming.
Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz cream cheese (the real stuff please, not any LITE garbage), room temperature
6 Tblsp unsalted butter, room temperature
2 – 3 cups confectioners’ sugar (I like my frosting less sweet, so taste as you add)
1 tsp vanilla extract
*optional: juice of ½ lemon
Cream together cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl.
SLOWLY sift confectioners’ sugar (slowly and sifting keeps out lumps) into cream cheese mixture, while beating till fully incorporated. As above, keep tasting till it’s the right flavor for you.
Stir in vanilla, and lemon juice if desired.
Can refrigerate, covered, but beat before frosting cake. If frosting cake right after preparing frosting, cake will probably need to be refrigerated for a bit to firm it up.
