Mom’s Banana Bread was always a special treat for us as kids. It didn’t happen very often, so when it did we would all run in and try to get the biggest piece. I think mom never made it often because my brothers liked bananas, and would eat them instead of being patient for them to fully ripen. Banana Bread requires ripe bananas. And I mean really ripe. Dark brown spots, almost black spots, and all over the banana. You should be able to smell it as ripe before you even peel it.
I, of course, am picky about bananas. They should be yellowing at the store, but not bruised or mishandled, and once they are home you can keep them in a paper bag to ripen faster to the banana bread stage.
This recipe is simple to make, even for a beginner cook, and when served warm from the oven it has a slightly crisp top crust, and practically melts in your mouth. Served cold (if it makes it that long), it is a great snack.
I usually mix it all by hand. You can use a mixer, but try to not over mix the batter. It turns out well with a few lumps still in it, and the mashed bananas not mixed so much as to be a fully even texture. As with most foods, a little variation on texture and consistency can bring interest to the palette!
This is best if served a day after baking. Or right out of the oven while the top crust is slightly crunchy.
Ingredients
1 cup sugar
½ cup butter (one stick)
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 or 3 bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 cup chopped nuts (walnut or pecan) – optional
Instructions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour the loaf pan.
Mix together sugar, butter, eggs, baking soda, salt, and vanilla. Add the bananas until blended. Stir in the flour until it comes together as a batter, similar in consistency to cake batter.
Bake between 1 hour and 1 hour 15 minutes, or until a knife (or toothpick) inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in the pan, then remove the pan and cool on a wire rack until completely cool.
One of my daughters birthday came up this week, and one of our family traditions is that I will make them any cake they ask for. Well, I will attempt, and do an heroic job of trying to make whatever cake they ask for. point of fact, the strawberry jello cake that is all too popular in the Southern United States was a complete disaster, and I would be ashamed to claim it except for the fact that i think I totally nailed it and got it spot on. It’s just a terrible cake. (Ok, to be fair, maybe I missed something that would make it perfect; if so, please leave a comment on whatever you think I am missing).
Ok, I got distracted. Back to the Pineapple Upside Down goodness.
I am an odd duck on some of my food opinions. And that is ok, everyone has their style. I like pineapple. I love Pineapple Upside Down cake. I absolutely hate, despise, and dislike pineapple on pizza. Yeah, I’m that guy.
Anyway, my daughter this week said she wanted Pineapple Upside Down Cake for her birthday. I was willing. So we made it, and it turned out well. The only issue was the candles. We served it warm, because it is wonderful that way, and the candles kept melting. We ended up having to stuff them in quick, light them, sing fast, and blow them out before they fell over. Well, before they fell over again.
As for the cake, a few years ago we were looking for a great pineapple upside down cake recipe. My friends call me a Food Snob, because I like things to be just right. usually i look up recipes on the Internet and end up combining a few, tweaking a bit, and coming up with what i think would make an excellent recipe. I then make it, tweak it, make it, tweak it, until I love it.
What I found was a Truly Great Pineapple Upside Down Cake Recipe. It was not too sweet, not too dense, and had great flavor. We have since made it at least a dozen times, and mostly use their recipe (with a few minor tweaks). It always gets rave reviews, and is good warm from the oven (give it at least 15 minutes or you will burn every last taste bud; it’s really that hot). It is also good the next day, room temperature, or refrigerated, etc. It’s just plain good any way you eat it.
Get out your 12 inch Cast Iron skillet.Everyone should have a Cast Iron Skillet. They are really good to work with, and fairly inexpensive, and other than the potential rust thing, you can practically never ruin them (just boil water in them and scrape them out, NEVER use soap, and put a thin layer or Crisco on them before you put them away. They will last forever).
Make the caramel topping. Put the brown sugar and butter into the skillet on medium heat. Once the butter and sugar begin to melt, gently stir until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is bubbly. Arrange pineapple rings in a single layer on top of the caramel mixture, and half rings along the sides (one can not have too much pineapple in this recipe!). Feel free to push the rings into the caramel a bit, just don’t burn yourself.
Preheat the oven. Stir together the flours, ground almonds, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Set aside.
Now in your mixer, beat the sugar and butter together until light (you want it incorporated well, and a light yellow color, but try not to over mix it or the cake’s texture won’t be as fluffy – aim for a little past where this photo is, when it has all come together).
Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, just until they are mixed in, then beat in the vanilla. It will look like the batter is coming apart a little, but if you keep going it will come back together.
This is what it will look like after all the eggs are in. Now add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream (I do flour, sour cream, flour, sour cream, flour), beating just until mixed after each addition.
Pour cake batter over caramel and pineapple in skillet.
Bake cake until tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Cool cake in skillet for 15 minutes. (Who are we kidding? It won’t be cool in 15 minute, but it will no longer be Napalm either).
Turn cake out onto a platter. The easiest way is to use good hot pads, put the platter upside down over the skillet, hold them together, and flip away from you). Serve warm or you can try to wait longer and serve at room temperature, but ours never lasts that long.
Oh, and If you are allergic to almonds, you can try substituting another five tablespoons of all purpose flour instead. But don’t do it unless you really must. The almonds give it a hint of nutty goodness.
Truly Great Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Adapted from http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pineapple_upside_down_cake/
Ingredients
Topping
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup butter
1½ cans pineapple rings 20 oz cans
Cake
1½ cups all purpose flour
6 tablespoons cake flour
6 tablespoons ground almonds or almond flour
¾ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoons salt
1¾ cups sugar
1 cup butter (two sticks) slightly softened or room temperature
4 eggs
¾ teaspoons vanilla extract
¾ cup sour cream
Instructions
Get out your 12 inch Cast Iron skillet. Make the caramel topping by putting the brown sugar and butter into the skillet on medium heat. Once the butter and sugar begin to melt, gently stir until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is bubbly. Arrange pineapple rings in a single layer on top of the caramel mixture, and half rings along the sides.
Preheat oven to 325° F. Stir the flours, ground almonds, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Set aside.
In your mixer, beat the sugar and butter together until light. (you want it incorporated well, and a light yellow color, but try not to over mix it or the cake's texture won't be as fluffy)
Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. It will look like the batter is coming apart a little, but if you keep going it will come back together.
Add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream, beating just until mixed after each addition.
Pour cake batter over caramel and pineapple in the skillet.
Bake cake until tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Cool cake in skillet for 15 minutes.
Turn cake out onto a platter. Serve warm or at room temperature.
All growing up, my brothers and I wanted Grandma’s Carrot Cake for our birthdays each year. We could never get enough of it. It was moist, flavorful, and mostly just plain awesome.
Years later, after getting married and moving around the country, I would order carrot cake anywhere that offered it. And inevitably, my wife would say “but you don’t like carrot cake”. My response was always “I LOVE Carrot Cake!” And inevitably, I would be disappointed by the dry, or flavorless, or over-spiced thing I would receive.
Then one day i ran across an old recipe in an old box. It was Grandma’s Carrot Cake! I had struck gold! And my beautiful bride put up with yet another carrot cake rant about how awesome Carrot Cake is, and helped me make it.
Once done, her comment? “THIS is why you like Carrot Cake!”. And she was right. As usual.
Recipes from my Grandmother were always products of the era they were written in. This recipe calls for one small, tall can of crushed pineapple. Those are no longer sold in stores, and I had to research it and play with the recipe to figure out it was one cup (including the juice).
Also, I occasionally run into people who don’t seem to like nuts. It baffles me, but people should have the freedom to have their carrot cake their way, so I usually chop and toast the pecans and push them into the frosting on the side of a two layer round cake. If they don’t like them, they can scrape them off. Well, unless they are allergic, in which case, you should probably leave them out entirely.
And now, some photos!
Grate, measure, zest, and set aside the parts that need to be grated, measured, and zested.
mix the sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla.
mix dry ingredients and add to the wet ingredients.
Add the coconut, carrots, pineapple and nuts (if using).
Stick it into your pan or pans and bake.
Get the once it’s baked and cooled, make the frosting.
Then frost the cake, and add nuts if you want.
If you can, wait a day, as it’s better a day later, but whenever you eat it, enjoy it!
The best, most delicious, moist, flavorful carrot cake ever. Dare I say, World's Best Carrot Cake?
Ingredients
Cake
1 cups sugar
1½ cups vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons grated orange rind
1 cup crushed pineapple with juice (One small, tall can)
½ cup shredded coconut
2 cups carrots (grated)
1½ cups nuts (pecans or walnuts) - Optional
Frosting
8 ounce cream cheese (one package)
½ cup butter (one stick)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
16 ounce powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour the pans (one 9”x13” or two 9” round).
Mix sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla together until blended. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and orange rind. Mix flour mixture into wet mixture until blended. Add in the pineapple, coconut, grated carrots, and nuts (if using).
Pour into two 9 inch round pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes (That's Grandma’s directions, I find that I have to bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes; your mileage may vary). You may also use a single 9x13 inch rectangle pan, and bake about 60 minutes. Cakes are done when a toothpick inserted in the middle is not goopy; a moist crumb or two is ok. Try not to overcook.
When done, (if using 9 inch round pans) remove from oven and let cool in pans for 10 minutes, then carefully remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack until completely cool. If using a rectangular pan, it may be cooled completely in the pan, although I think it turns out slightly better if cooled on a rack.
For the frosting, cream together the butter and cream cheese, then add in the vanilla and powdered sugar until blended and no lumps.
Mom’s Banana Bread was always a special treat for us as kids. It didn’t happen very often, so when it did we would all run in and try to get the biggest piece. I think mom never made it often because my brothers liked bananas, and would eat them instead of being patient for them to fully ripen. Banana Bread requires ripe bananas. And I mean really ripe. Dark brown spots, almost black spots, and all over the banana. You should be able to smell it as ripe before you even peel it.
