Made this cake yesterday. The cake rose nicely and when frosted and sprinkled with toasted coconut, looked exactly like the picture in the recipe. I took it to a dinner party and the verdict, unfortunately, was unanimous. The cake is extremely dense and two layers is definitely too much. The frosting was the only saving grace. I ate a normal sized piece and felt like I swallowed a whole coconut. I’m keeping the frosting recipe. Just need to find a better cake to slather it on.
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There is no way a cake with 4 c. of flour, 1 c. of butter, 6 eggs, and 6 bananas is going to fit into two conventional 9" layer pans. Even the photo looks like the cake was baked in 9"x 3" (or even 10" x 3") springform pans at a minimum. I can't believe that Melissa Clark baked her batter in the pans specified in the recipe. That's even a lot of batter for a 10" tube pan. Bakers beware! You may end up with a mess in your oven or plan ahead for three 9" layers at a minimum. It's WAY too much batter. You could cut the recipe by 1/3 and hope for the best. I'm not touching this recipe as written.
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I made it as stated and it worked out. The cake does not rise much. It is a dense cake though and two layers were more than I needed.
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No nutritional information with the recipe. Melissa probably does not want to scare us off.
I also would like to try this as a one layer cake. My idea would be to use a tube cake pan. I probably would omit the frosting. I love dense cakes but do not like frosting. If anyone tries this as a one layer cake, please let us know the results.
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This sounds delicious. Anyone have ideas about a variation of this recipe for those of us who don’t enjoy coconut?
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garnish with slivered almonds or walnuts
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@ Anniegraham Connecticut
Perhaps try other nuts, dry fruit or even slices of turnip and squash.
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Mini chocolate chips! I include a cup of these little gems in my banana bread and so many folks love the combo. Personally, I hate it - I simply love banana bread - pure and simple, but there is that crowd out there that enjoys the combo.
Good luck with your experimentation.
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I made this cake this afternoon. It is good, not great. While sweet as promised, it is very heavy and dense, and is just a lot of cake. I like both banana and coconut and was intrigued by their combination, but I will not be making this again.
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What about making it a one layer cake instead of two?
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You might try using cake flour to reduce the heaviness and denseness. Cake flour has a lower protein content, so is less gluten-forming. Though it is probably better in some cakes vs others (depending on ratio of fats/sugars/liquids by weight in cake), it still might be worth experimenting with anyways because a good banana cake is really, really nice. Taking care not to overstir can also help avoid gluten over-development, which can give you a tough cake. I recently made my favorite banana cake recipe using Softasilk cake flour and it was hands down one of the best cakes I have ever made. You might find these links useful:
https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2014/05/27/the-a-b-cs-of-cake-flour/
http://www.finecooking.com/article/for-great-cakes-get-the-ratios-right
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If you want to substitute cake flour for all-purpose flour, you also can reduce each cup of all-purpose flour by 2 Tbsp in any recipe.
Melissa Clark's recipes are never anything to get excited about. Bummer. Where are the perfectionists with imagination like the late Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey?
Melissa Clark's recipes are never anything to get excited about. Bummer. Where are the perfectionists with imagination like the late Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey?
@ fragilewing Outta Nowhere
You are obviously an expert on the degrees of sweetness of pastry. Humans' love of sweet is undoubtedly an atanvistic character, once it was discovered that sweet improves the mood. But, in the era of the so-called dietary correctness, sugar is frowned upon.
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Unfortunately, not just dietary correctness is at stake, survival and health are. Sugar tweaks the brain chemistry, as do simple starches, flour, potatoes , bread. Sugar raises serotonin, adrenalin is released. Blood glucose rises as sugar enters the system. We feel good. Our "sweet tooth" was all well and good in humans before we had easy access to refined sugar. The problem is that we did not evolve eating the quantity of sugar which is in the diet now that sugar is easily available and inexpensive. Our diet has been industrialized. It is hard to find foods which do not have added sugar. The constant assault of more sugar than our evolution designed us for breaks us down. Sugar, and flour are not the only culprits. The "bad fats"-- hydrogenated, or oxidized trans-fatty acids are often used in lab animals bred with genetic weakness for diabetes, to make them actually become diabetic. Those susceptible to heart arrhythmia, like me, will find that sugar triggers arrhythmia due to the adrenalin release. It would be better for us, and most people not to eat added sugar. This is a compromise--to lower the amount of sugar in the pastry, blunt the insulin reaction with protein--along with eating pastry less often--"having your cake and eating it too". Diabetes Type II is epidemic in Americans. Until fairly recently, it was exclusively an adult disease. Now it is occurring in children. Some concessions to our evolutionary diet are need for us to remain healthy.
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nice recipe i like this.
pancake recipe
The coconut cream is a good idea, as extra virgin coconut oil is one of the healthiest fats. Instead of either/or, how about tempting us, if we are going to make cakes, to make cakes which both delicious, and better than conventional ones for our health? There are cakes which are healthier but with no compromise in quality. Nut tortes of Austrian and German origin which have a flour made mostly of ground nuts, especially made with restraint on the amount of sugar, are elegant, tasty, and more healthful. They do not have to be difficult to make, "The Love of Eating" cookbook has a chocolate cake which is mixed in the blender using almonds or walnuts and a few tablespoons of bread crumbs instead of flour.Chocolate is also antioxidant. This cake also keeps well, becoming more flavorful for days, thus can be baked well in advance of a party. Italian ricotta cheese cakes in apple versions, and also a chocolate version, served warm with a molten chocolate heart, light as a cloud, absolutely heavenly, higher in protein, thus helps reduce the insulin reaction to sugar. One's taste adjusts to prefer a restrained sugar content. "The Viennese Pastry Book'' by Lily Joss Reich,has a section on cakes based on nut flours. The Solo Poppyseed Cake made by their recipe with two cans of Solo Poppy Filling instead of one, baked until a straw comes out dry because of the extra moisture. Hugh protein, maddeningly delicious for true lovers of poppyseed. Angel food cake is high protein, etc....
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Sometimes you just want cake; no guilt or shame.
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