Banana Refrigerator Cake

Hi Heavenly Bakers! As Marie said in the last 'Last Cake, Next Cake' I, Saira, am the guest host for this week. It's been a while since I've blogged or participated in the group and it's great to be back! I was really looking forward to the Refrigerator Banana Cake recipe in this book and was so dissapointed when the cake was already done by Marie. Then, there was an ingenious idea of guest hosts making cakes already done by Marie before the group started. So of course I jumped on the wagon as I love banana cake. The best Banana Cake I've had was at my bridal shower, my sister picked a great bakery and a great cake! At the shower, I had the chocolate raspberry part of the cake but once the guests left, and there was a ton of cake leftover, I tried the banana cake and fell in love. Since then, I've been looking for a great banana cake recipe and knew Rose would have it so I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it.

So here's how I did it....

First, I proccessed the 2 bananas and sour cream together. To be honest, I was loathing using a food processor AND a hand mixer, but it didn't seem that much trouble at the end. The banana mixture tasted pretty good at this point!

Then, I added the eggs and the vanilla. No lemon zest.

I transfered the banana mixture to a large bowl and mixed in the turbinado sugar with a hand blender.

In went the oil. Then I mixed in the dry ingredients: cake flour, salt, baking powder,and baking soda.

Then the cake went in the oven. I had a little more batter from my 8" pan so I made a few banana cupcakes too...

I didn't make the White Chocolate Cream Cheese frosting for this cake. I was all set with my ingredients and all of a sudden had a change of heart. I didn't want the tange of this frosting with this cake so instead, I decided to make a whipped white chocolate frosting. I just used the White Chocolate Ganache recipe from 'The Cake Bible' and whipped it.

For the frosting,

I ground 4 oz white chocolate in the chopper. Heated a cup of heavy cream and mixed it again in the chopper. Chilled it for a few hours in the freezer. And, finally, whipped it till stiff peaks formed.

So how was the cake...it was DELICIOUS. I am no longer looking for the perfect banana cake recipe. This cake will stack nicely so it will be great as a celebration cake with maybe a meringue buttercream. It's perfectly sweetened and has a strong banana flavor which wouldn't be over-powered by buttercream. I think the turbinado sugar gives the cake a depth and a uniqueness which other recipes don't have. The cake was really soft and moist and paired beautifully with the white chocolate whipped cream

I will do stacking and frosting of the cake some other time, but for now this cake is absolutely perfect with the whipped white chocolate frosting. I think this will be my go to cake light entertaining (granted I have ripe bananas on hand which is a scarce commodity in my home) because the cake was super easy despite the food process and other appliances.