This Cake is Bananas: B-a-n-a-n-a-s!

The lovely Meeta or What’s For Lunch Honey is the always enthusiastic host of the Monthly Mingle which has been going strong for a year now. To celebrate the Mingle’s first anniversary, the theme this month is quite appropriately entitled “Big Birthday Bang.” Meeta has challenged us to make her something special and what better place to find a special recipe than from Baking: From My Home to Yours, (is it really a surprise to anyone that this is the first place I looked?). I’ve been steadily making my way through Dorie’s book, for no other reason than the fact that I like it so much. I love her writing style and I love the way her recipes turn out. As with all of Dorie’s recipes, this banana cake, (Lots-of-Ways Banana cake, page 204) is presented as a versatile recipe that can be dressed up or dressed down depending on the occasion. Since this was a special occasion, I was certainly going to dress it up and I actually went a step further than the suggestions and turned it into a three layer cake, with a fourth layer crumbled on top. Don’t worry though, I didn’t stress myself trying to dream up this wonderful technique, I simply turned a few pages. This is the same frosting, (marshmallow) and method used for Dorie’s Devil’s Food White Out cake, (page 247). I had previously made the White Out cake for New Years and it was a big success. I figured if it worked with Devil’s Food cake, why not banana? I wasn’t disappointed. Bananas, coconut and marshmallow stacked into a towering cake is nothing short of impressive. Making it was pretty fun too. Although I don’t think I’m all that good at icing cakes, I find the process visually appealing. Cakes are so cute when they go from naked to fully dressed. Is that weird? Have I said too much? I better go eat some cake…

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Bananas + Cake + Marshmallow + Coconut + Dorie Greenspan