Another Baking Adventure: Banana Cake with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting!

I love cooking and baking, which is odd because most people like one or the other. I guess it kind of follows the way I am with life in general...I tend to like or try to like everything. If I don't know about it I will find out, If you don't know about it I will most likely tell you; sometimes if you want to know and a lot of times even if you don't(this can be problem causing, and I have probably gotten both friends and family frustrated with me because of it)...but I digress. Baking is where I was heading today. It had been a while since I baked something so yesterday when I found a whole bag of bananas that someone had forgotten to put away after coming home from the store, I figured it was a perfect time to bake something...but what? Well of course this takes internet research(that gotta know gene that I have) was it going to be pie, bread, cake, pudding...the ideas with bananas is endless someone even posted banana/tomato pizza(personally not very interested). So after discussing with family and lots of oohing and aaahing over the beautiful internet photos, we had finally whittled the choices down to Banana Cream Pie, Banana Cake, and upside-down banana cake(think pineapple, but banana instead).

So here's what I choose to do:

Banana Cake with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting...It is so very yummy and definitely on our make again list. The cake was firm, but remained moist and I was able to frost it without it falling apart. There are a lot of cakes that tend to do that on me. Chocolate is my nemesis, but box cake mix an ultimate evil doer(yes, I have four boys).

The cake is delicious on its own and would probably be great baked in a loaf pan as a breakfast treat, but this is cake and it definitely needed frosting so back to the internet for more research on what goes with Banana cake. Butter Cream...too plain, cream cheese...good idea, but will it be enough flavor, Caramel Frosting would be perfect the dark brown sugar off sets the flavor of banana perfectly, but what I wanted was frosting not a poured topping layer. So I had the genius idea of mixing all three(of course so have other people...I looked it up after I finished the cake).

Here is the recipe that I ended up coming up with. It was a combination of several different ones that I found converted from metric measure, and then I made it larger to make a bigger cake.

Banana Cake
2 sticks of butter softened
3 cups of sugar(next time I will use less) I used half white half brown
5-6 mashed Bananas
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
3 Eggs
1/3 cup of milk(or cream)
3 cups of flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, add bananas, milk, eggs, and blend then add the flour and baking soda. Stir gently until combined. Divide into baking pans. This recipe made two 9" pans. Bake in a preheated oven 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. When a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean its done.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
1/2 cup of butter
1/4 cup cream
8 ounces(one block) of Cream Cheese
2 teaspoons vanilla
powder sugar

Melt the butter and brown sugar in a heavy bottom sauce pan and heat until sugar is melted. Add the cream cheese and stir until melted and combined. Let it cool a bit and add in the cream and vanilla. When cooled to room temperature, transfer to a mixing bowl and begin adding powder sugar until you get frosting consistency. The cooler the mixture gets the thicker it will get. If it seems to thin, it may be too warm. Let it sit a while and whip it up again when it is cool to the touch.

If you like Banana and Caramel, Bananas Foster, or any of the other combinations of banana brown sugar this will definitely be on your go to list for cakes.

Try it out and let me know how yours came out. Our kids wanted to eat it for breakfast...

Happy Baking!