Truly The Best Ever Banana Cake

Every so often, I go trolling through cookbooks and the internet for a good banana cake recipe. Yesterday, my nose led me to a bunch of bananas I thought I had found a good place for in the kitchen, and then promptly forgot about. Time to look for that elusive wet cake recipe involving bananas.
It was my lucky day. A baker named Rhonda posted this recipe I'm sharing with you, with a few adaptations of my own.




                                                         Banana Cake

2 cups mashed ripe bananas, doused with a half lemon

3 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 cup salted butter

2 cups and 2 tablespoons sugar

3 large eggs, brought to room temperature in a small bowl of hot water for 5 minutes

2 teaspoons vanilla                                                                                                                                                                           1 1/2 cups milk, acidulated with apple cider vinegar, or buttermilk

1. Heat oven to 275 ( yes, that low! do it, it works)

     2. Spray a 9 x 12 pan with Pam  

     3. I a medium bowl, whisk the flour and baking soda together

     4. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together till fluffy and add the eggs , one at a time , waiting for each to be fully incorporated, then add the vanilla. Alternate adding the sour milk and the flour mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Don't overmix.

    5. Stir in banana mixture and turn the batter into the pan. Bake about an hour, or when you touch the middle of the cake lightly with your fingers, it offers a little resistance.

   6. Now Rhonda says at this point to put it directly into the freezer for 45 minutes before frosting to up the moisture factor- I didn't because we were leaving for the dog park, and the result was still incredibly moist.

Now for frosting, you can do 1/2 cup butter, 8 ounces cream cheese, some lemon rind, vanilla, and 3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar. Because I had an additional cup of banana puree, I put it in a pot with 1/2 cup of brown sugar and a tablespoon of corn syrup and cooked it down for about 15 minutes till it smelled like bananas foster. To the cream cheese mixture, I added that with just a bit of confectioners sugar to taste , and beat the hell out of it.
This cake will make you very very happy- and it keeps perfectly in the refrigerater.