Banana Nut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
This delicious cake is quick to whip up, and perfect for those not quite perfect bananas!
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
- 2/3 C shortening
- 3 ripe bananas mashed
- 2/3 C buttermilk (see note for buttermilk "substitute")
- 2 large eggs
- 1.5 tsp vanilla
- 1-2/3 C granulated sugar
- 2.5 C cake flour all-purpose flour works, but the cake is denser
- 1.25 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2/3 C chopped nuts your choice of nuts
- 8 oz cream cheese softened to room temperature
- 6 T butter softened to room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 4 C powdered sugar
The Cake
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. If using round layer pans, grease and flour two pans.
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and nuts.
In a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, whip on medium speed shortening, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk until smooth. Add bananas and stir on low only until mixed in. Add dry mixture and mix until all ingredients incorporated, then mix on high 2 minutes. Pour into greased pan(s). Bake 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Cream Cheese Frosting
In a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, whip cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Whip just until all powedered sugar is incorporated. If you whip too long, the frosting may break down and get stringy!
NOTE:
I typically incorporate walnuts or pecans into the batter, but you could use any type of your favorite nuts. Chop some extra to sprinkle on top of the frosting. That's always a good indicator for non-nut people that there are nuts in the dish!
SUBSTITUTE BUTTERMILK
I never keep buttermilk on hand unless I know I'm going to be using the whole carton. It's just not something I buy. An easy substitute is to make your own with regular milk and an "acid". I use lemon juice for baking, and some sort of vinegar (red wine, apple cider, white distilled) for savory dishes.
Stir together 1 Cup milk + 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Let it sit for 10 minutes, and you have buttermilk! Keyword banana, banana cake, cream cheese frosting