Banana Bundt Cake from Real Life Dinner

Banana Bundt Cake - made September 28, 2023 from Real Life Dinner

1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 or 4 bananas)

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 1/8 cups sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

3 large eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

2 teaspoons baking soda

3 cups all-purpose flour

Cream Cheese Icing

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 8-ounce cream cheese, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan.
2. Mash bananas with 2 teaspoons lemon juice; set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together softened butter and sugar until well combined. Add oil and mix to combine. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix after each addition until combined.
4. Add vanilla, salt and buttermilk, mixing well. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
5. Add baking soda and flour, mixing on low speed until just combined. Add mashed bananas and mix until just combined.
6. Pour batter into an even layer in bundt pan, filling 2/3 full. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the thickest part of cake comes out clean. Remove cake from oven and immediately place in freezer for 45-60 minutes.
7. Make cream cheese icing: in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and cream cheese for 2 minutes until combined and smooth. Add vanilla and mix to combine. Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, mixing until combined and smooth. Frost cake.

Since most of my baking is for military care packages on behalf of Soldiers Angels, I rarely make cakes anymore since they're not good to send overseas (too long of a mailing time) and I don't have enough local eaters to help me polish off a whole cake. Until now. Lately, I've been trying to meet more people locally. I have lots of friends but hardly any in my zip code or nearby. Or certainly not people I know well enough to whip up a bunch of baked goods for and say, "here, can you take these off my hands?" But I came across a local women's facebook group and joined, thinking it'd be good to push my introverted self out there to meet more people locally. And it has been, as I cautiously poke my head out of my introverted turtle shell (did I mention I'm an introvert??)  

Last night I hosted several people at my house who were also interested in baking. And, crucially, one of them worked at a local nonprofit (Reno Initiative) and signed up to take all of the baked goods off our hands so she could share them with her employees. Score! I spent my day off yesterday in a frenzy of baking, finally getting to try some of the cake recipes I've had on my pinterest board for donkey's years. Including this banana bundt cake. Yes, off and on, I still try to replicate the banana cake from Icing on the Cake in the Bay Area. It's my favorite cake and I can't find a replacement for it. Still haven't with this recipe but it's not bad. It's moist and flavorful but it's definitely the dense pound cake texture, not the fluffy texture of Icing on the Cake's banana cake. 

You can see above this didn't come out of the bundt pan cleanly so I had to do a patch job. But you can also see that the cream cheese frosting hid a multitude of sins. I didn't get a great inside picture as by the time I cut the cake and was eating a slice, I was deep in conversation with my guests and forgot my blogging responsibilities, ha. Good basic pound cake and easy to serve to a crowd. I hope the employees at Reno Initiative enjoy it.