Banana Cake

( Banana Cake)
So much for the weekend blogging but I did get the green tomato salsa canned and the six bananas the grand children didn't eat from a couple weeks ago made into banana muffins and banana cake. The banana muffins went into the freezer but the banana cake went with us to our daughter with the grand kids. The banana's disguise was a big hit. Could be the heavy dose of chocolate chips inside the cake and the creamy chocolate frosting on top. They like bananas but they loved the cake. And I liked the fact that I got to have a piece and then temptation (the cake) was left at their house.

We ate cake first because I couldn't wait to dig in either so we all had a piece to fortify ourselves and then went to work stringing paint tape on our three and four year old grand daughter's two white walls. Our daughter had painted two walls pink and two walls white. The plan was to have a ten inch stripe of white and then a four inch stripe of pink on the white walls to liven up the room. After Kirk and I taped he went off to hang pictures and a coat rack in another room while our daughter and I painted the pink stripes.

I think the room will be adorable even though I'm not a big fan of pink rooms, even when I was four. That was the year my mom painted my room pink and then put in red carpet and red and white striped curtains. I'm sure she thought every little girl would love a pink room. I hated it. She had a cantaloupe melon colored room and that's what I wanted. I know, pretty weird for a four year old child.

So you can understand that if pink is what my grand daughters want, I'll paint pink, not cantaloupe melon.

But what I really was going to talk about is the green tomato salsa. It ended up being a non repeater as we call it. Okay, but not wonderful. The banana cake on the other hand was a surprise. It is Kirk's mom's recipe and I've made it lots of times but never at the same time as I made banana bread muffins. Which is just banana bread made into muffin tins for convenience. They each had the same amount of shortening, sugar, milk, soda, and salt. The difference was the cake had vanilla, one teaspoon of baking powder, and less flour, oh yea, and no egg. But, I had altered the original banana bread recipe and added the egg and dropped the amount of milk.

So now my brain is whirling thinking if banana bread has three cups of flour and banana cake has two what if I took another quick bread recipe and dropped the flour amount and added a teaspoon of baking powder would it too make a good snack cake?

Grandma Rexroat's Banana Cake
Mix:
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup mashed bananas (3)
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Then add:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt

Bake at 350 for 35 to 40 minutes. I prefer dividing the batter into two smaller cake pans so I can freeze one to enjoy later and Kirk and I aren't stuck trying to eat a whole big cake. It also gives me a nice size to take over to our neighbors, who are an older couple.