Banana Cake

Banana Nut Cake

  • 2-1/2 Cups flour
  • 1-1/2 Cups sugar
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup Crisco shortening
  • 1 Cup mashed rip bananas (about 3-4 bananas)
  • 1/2 Cup chopped pecans or walnuts
  • 2/3 Cup buttermilk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift dry ingredients together.  Cream shortening and bananas in large mixing bowl.  Pour in dry ingredients all at once.  Beat on low speed of electric mixer until dry ingredients have all been moistened.  Add nuts, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla.  Beat for 2 minutes more on medium speed.  Pour batter into two greased and floured 9-inch cake pans.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or longer until done.  The cake is done when a toothpick inserted into middle of cake will come out clean, with no liquid sticking to it.   Cut two pieces of wax paper and remove cake from oven, cooling first in the baking pans for 10 minutes on wire racks, then invert each layer onto a piece wax paper.  Cool thoroughly before frosting.

How to frost a 2-layer cake

Icing vs frosting – these terms are used interchangeably by most people, but icing is a little thinner consistency and usually dries shiny, with a very slight “crust” to the top when you cut into the cake.  It can’t really be shaped, just spread in a flat layer.  Frosting remains smooth and creamy for a few days and you can swirl your knife through it to make designs in it once you have covered the cake.  Decorator frosting has more fat (shortening or butter) in it than regular frosting, which makes it easy to pipe into shapes with a decorator icing bag and various tips.  Some decorators prefer an icing for hand-lettering messages on the top of a cake, but that means you have to make a completely separate batch of icing for the lettering and most of us won’t go to the trouble so we just use frosting for the decorations and the lettering.

To ice or frost this cake,  make your own penuche (pan ooo chee) frosting from the recipe below to really impress your guests.  You can’t buy penuche frosting in the store but if you are intimidated by home-made frosting, buy 2 containers of caramel frosting and use that instead.

Assemble like this: place one of the cake layers top down on a cake plate and remove the waxed paper from the other side of the cake.  Put  1/4  of the frosting in the center of the cake in a big blob and spread it out to the edges of the cake layer.  The frosting should be thickest at the edges, not the center, of the cake.  Flip the other cake layer still in its wax paper upside down on a clean hand and remove the wax paper.  Place the side that had the wax paper on top of the first cake layer on the cake plate.  Put 1/3 of the remaining frosting in a big on the top and spread out to the edges.  Quickly frost the sides of the cake with the remaining frosting.  Frost sides by starting at the top and spreading down: put a small blob of icing on the top edge and spread it down the sides of the 2 cake layers.

Penuche (Caramel) Frosting or Icing for Banana Nut Cake

  • 1 Cup oleo
  • 2 Cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 Cup milk
  • 6 Cups sifted powdered sugar (a little less than 1 pound)

Melt oleo and then add brown sugar in a 3-quart pot.  Cook and stir on medium heat, until bubbly.  Remove from heat.  Add milk and beat vigorously with a hand mixer until smooth.  On low speed, add 5 cups of sugar one cup at a time.  Add 1/2 cup more of the sugar and mix until smooth This frosting should be thick and creamy.  Turn off the mixer and lift the beaters out of the frosting.  If you think the frosting can take the last 1/2 cup of sugar and still be easy to spread, add it now. it dries fast so if you think it needs more sugar, add the last of it now and be ready to spread the frosting on the cake quickly.  Since the recipe usually takes almost all of sugar,  sift a 1-pound box or half of a 2-pound bag to ensure you have enough.  Frost the cake (instructions above) quickly.

Carlyn’s note: the sugar is re-crystallizing while cooling so you have to spread the frosting all over the cake very fast. This is probably one of my most favorite of all my mom’s recipes, but I don’t make it very often because the icing usually hardens in the pot on me because I try to make the top layer “pretty” before getting all the frosting on the cake. Don’t take time to swirl icing when you are spreading it.  Just get it all on the cake the first time you make it.

Recipe from Diane Foshee (Carlyn’s mom)