Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Woah! Summer is here! It's 30C in Montreal in mid-March! Can't believe it.... sigh, global warming is really hitting the earth!! It was Gilbert's house warming last week. Congratulations Gilbert! Due to his special request ( I feel honored), I have brought my famous banana cake for dessert! I have not made this for quite a while, maybe over a year? I still remember how the little kid of my church instructors, Hin Shun, likes this cake a lot. So adorable!

I can proudly present that this is my favorite recipe in my collection. The cream cheese frosting has made this banana cake special. The cake itself is moist and rich. The recipe is from allrecipes, but modified after summarizing the comments. A few points to note:

1) The baking temperature is 275 F, YES! 275F, this is not a typo. This low temperature allows the cake to become really moist. But my baking time is a lot longer than what it indicates on the recipe. It takes me around 1.5 hour.

2) After taking the cake out of the oven, original recipe tells us to put the cake in the freezer/ fridge right the way, as this is a trick to moisten the cake as well. I figure out that the cake is still moist and good even if you don't put your cake in the fridge. So this is up to you.

3) Use of brown sugar can make the cake rich.

4) Never skip the icing!!! It's the highlight!!

5) Serve cold, can be kept for over a week or can be made ahead of time for a partayyyyyy :)

Recipes (adopted from All Recipes)
Yield: 9" x 13 " pan

Ingredients

•        3/4 cup butter

•        1 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar

•        3 eggs

•        3 teaspoons vanilla extract

•        3 cups all-purpose flour

•        1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

•        1/4 teaspoon salt

•        1 1/2 cups buttermilk

•        2 teaspoons lemon juice

•        1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (5 large bananas)

•       

•        1/2 cup butter, softened

•        1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

•        1- 1 ½  confectioners' sugar

•        1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1.         Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan. In a small bowl, mix mashed bananas with lemon juice, set aside. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

2.         In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in 2 teaspoons vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Stir in banana mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3.         Bake in preheated oven for 1-1.5  hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place directly into freezer for 45 minutes. This will make the cake very moist.

4.         For the frosting: In a large bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter and cream cheese until smooth. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add confectioners sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high until frosting is smooth. Spread on cooled cake.