Ugly, black bananas transformed into beautiful, creamy banana cake. That is all.
I never purchase bananas at the grocery store with the intention of letting them rot on the counter top, but life happens. Good thing really ripe bananas are still usable.
It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right? After peeling the ugly, outer exterior off of these bananas, I tossed them in my Sunbeam mixer with sugar–and magic happened.
This is a cool trick, thanks Barefoot Contessa. Often, recipes call for room temperature eggs, but if you’re like me and forget to take your eggs out the night before, just place them in warm water for 5 minutes while your other ingredients come together.
Chopped walnuts and bananas were meant to be together.
I never understood this step. Why not just measure the ingredients and toss them in the mixer? Because something about sifting the dry ingredients gives you a nice, light and airy batter. It doesn’t take long, just do it.
Add sifted ingredients to the banana and sugar mixture…look how beautiful that is!! GOOD GOD A’MIGHTY!! It tastes amazing. Check out that swirl action.
Gently stir in walnuts.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan. I cannot emphasize preparing your pan enough. There is no worse feeling than pulling a warm, delicious looking and smelling cake out of the oven only to have it stick to the pan and come apart when transferring it to a wire rack to cool. Butter and flour that thing real good!!
Perfection.
Not quite finished. Next step: Make frosting. This frosting is to die for. I mean it. Room temperature butter and cream cheese meet pure vanilla extract and confectioner’s sugar and a creamy, thick, bright white frosting is born. To bring butter and cream cheese to room temperature, leave them on the counter over night or just sit them on the stove top while the oven gets warm.
Pile it high on top of the completely cooled cake. I love the contrasting colors here.
Decorate with whole walnuts. Simplicity at its finest.
And to think I almost threw those bananas away.
The entire recipe for Old Fashioned Banana Cake can be found in Ina Garten’s cookbook, Barefoot Contessa How Easy is That?
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