Banana Caramel Cake

So I did some baking over the weekend. I love to bake. I love baking cakes, pies, cookies, brownies, pastries, you name it. I also love bananas. And caramel. So when I saw this recipe for a Banana Caramel Cake posted on buzzfeed from The Kitchn, I absolutely knew I had to have this cake in my belly. Bananas and caramel made into a cake. Who wouldn’t think that sounds delicious? Crazy people, I tell you, crazy! Actually I had been eyeing this recipe for a while, but I never had enough bananas, since I always eat them. But over the week, I made it a point to save the bananas. It was hard. Especially since I figured out I could freeze them and then blend them with peanut butter and coconut milk to make a delicious frozen treat. It’s about to get real up in here. This cake is absolutely amazing. I mean, look at it. 

I want a piece right now just writing this post. Is 10 am too early for cake? I’ve gotten a little behind on my posts, and I’ve got plenty of recipes backed up to post, but this cake is so good I feel like I would be doing a disservice to the WordPress community if I did not share this on a Monday, and give you plenty of time to gather your bananas in preparation for weekend baking. You will definitely want to wait to make this cake for when you have plenty of time. There are three steps: caramel, cake, and icing. I’m sure you could make the caramel and frosting ahead of time, but that might be a bad idea. I made the caramel a few hours before it went on the cake and I caught my sweet-toothed boyfriend sneaking fingers and spoons of the liquid gold.

So, without further adieu, the recipe: * The only thing I did differently was I made only two layers. My two round cake pans are 9×2, so the cooking time was pretty much the same.

Ingredients, straight from The Kitchn:

Caramel Sauce
makes approximately 3 cups

• 2 cups cream
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Banana Caramel Cake

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature for an hour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas, from about 4 to 5 medium bananas (1 1/2 pounds)
• 1 1/2 cups caramel sauce (recipe above)

Caramel Buttercream
makes enough to fill and top a 3-layer cake

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup caramel sauce (recipe above)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

To Make:

Make the caramel sauce by heating the cream in a saucepan over low to medium heat. Just enough to keep it warm. Don’t let it boil. In another saucepan, add the sugar and water over high heat and whisk until sugar is dissolved. Once it starts boiling, stop whisking. Let it boil until you have reached a deep amber color. This will take maybe around 10 minutes. It may take a little less, it may take a little more. Once the sugar water has reached the deep amber, turn off the heat. Pour the warm cream into the sugar water slowly. I say slowly because once you start adding the cream, the sugar water will bubble something fierce. Be careful not to go cray cray and make it boil over. Whisk that cream into the sugar water like nobody’s business. Now add the butter and salt, and continue whisking until everything is mixed and smooth. Turn the heat back up to medium, and cook for several minutes, until the caramel has reduced just a tiny bit. Now you can take it off the heat and let the caramel cool off. Try to keep yourself from taking a spoon full of this stuff for right now, else you’ll end up with a burnt tongue. 

Now you want to make the cake by smashing around 5 bananas into a container. Enough to make 1 1/2 cups. I used a potato masher to get this done. Now add the milk and vanilla, and whisk together with the bananas. Heat the oven to 325 while you work. Go ahead and grease your cake pans, too.

In a large container (or bowl) whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Put aside.

In a large bowl using a hand mixer, or if you’re lucky enough to have a stand mixer, add the butter and both the brown and white sugars. Cream until mixed. Add the eggs one by one and beat after each egg. The mixture will start getting liquidy and smooth. 

Now take your banana mixture and flour, and add to the egg mixture separately, and little by little while beating, until you have a nice bug smooth batter. So, you take the bananas, pour a little into the eggs, and beat. Now you take a little of the flour, pour into the eggs, and beat.Repeat switching until finished. 

You can now pour the batter into the cake pans. Take 1/2 cup of the caramel sauce and pour into the cake pans. So, you will use up a cup of caramel here. Each pan gets a half cup. Swirl into the batter. Put those babies into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. The house will smell amazing while these are cooking. No joke. Look how gorgeous these cakes turned out. 

Once the cakes are finished, put them on a rack to cool. The cooling process will take a couple of hours. Less if you’re lucky. Make sure they are completely cooled before you assemble. You don’t want the icing to melt when you ice the cake. That would suck.

Make the icing by creaming all of the ingredients together except for the powdered sugar. Once the ingredients are smooth, add the powdered sugar little by little until you get a nice completely smooth and and light icing. And holy cow is this icing delicious. 

Now you can finally start assembling the cake.

Get out your cake stand. Trust me, you want this on display. Add one layer of cake to the stand. Use a little bit of icing all over the top, add the next layer, repeat, and add the top layer and use the rest to cover the top. I saved the majority of the icing for the top. Now take the remaining caramel and do what you want with it. Pour it over the cake. Drizzle it over the cake. Eat it by itself. I poured it, because I wanted it all over the top. I had some left over to drizzle on the sides once sliced. If you want, you can top the cake with banana slices. Um, yes, please.

Now, the cake is finished and ready to eat. Believe you me, this cake won’t last long. It’s THAT good. You may want to have a glass of milk on standby. 

Enjoy, and happy baking!

 

Because this is an attempt to duplicate a published recipe,and because caramel always kicks my ass, this post will go into Our Growing Edge, which is a monthly collaboration of bloggers trying new things, hopefully getting inspired along the way. This month is hosted by Marija, over at PALACHINKA.  Anyone can participate, and this is my second post with Our Growing Edge. Participating is really fun, and I encourage you all to give it a shot. Head on over to Bunny.Eats.Design for details!