I made that!

Saturday was my friend Tessa’s birthday and she was in for quite a surprise. She was in Santa Cruz for the weekend and was repeatly shocked to see her friends popping up throughout the day to be with her. The whole day ended with everyone at the restaurant Oswald for a big celebration dinner. Of course I was in charge of the birthday cake, and I had IDEAS. I had been mulling it over for weeks – what a Tessa cake would be like. I knew she liked fruit, so I started there. Then I remembered that I had some homemade dulce de leche in fridge, left over from the failed Twix experiment. And thus the banoffee cake was born.

First I made a simple buttercream that I whipped the dulce de leche into.

Then I found a fantastic banana cake recipe. I wanted something that was rich and sweet, because I wanted it to taste and feel like cake, not banana bread. Thank you Flo Braker, you are proving yourself to be my official “go to” for cake recipes.

I baked 3 layers of the yummy banana cake.

And then started layering on the dulce de leche buttercream, followed by fresh slices of bananas.

I topped it with some toasted pecans and spent 20 minutes going “Crap, it’s so tall. How am I going to get it to Santa Cruz?”

We eventually found a box to transport it in, and picked up our friends and began the drive down. Once we got there, I was dismayed to see that it had totally melted. Duh – we don’t have air conditioning in our much loved Volvo. The buttercream had softened and the top layers had slid off to the side. Thankfully the prep cooks at Oswald were nice enough to let me pop the cake in the walk-in for 20 minutes and then attempt to put it back together. It was never as pretty as it started out, but I don’t think anyone else noticed. Tessa was still surprised when it was brought out, and there wasn’t a bite left. Happy Birthday Tessa!

RECIPE (adapted rom Flo Braker):

1 cup sifted cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 large) mashed ripe banana

1 tablespoon sour cream

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

5 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

– Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8″ pan with butter and lay down parchment.

– Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Combine the mashed banana, sour cream and lemon zest in a small bowl.

– Using an electric mixer, cream the butter until it is smooth and lighter in color. Add the sugar and scrape the mixture clinging to the sides into the center of the bowl. Continue to cream until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until the mixture is quite fluffy. Add half of the flour mixture until blended. Then add the banana mixture, blending well. Add the remaining flour mixture, blending until smooth.

– Scoop the thick batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 30 -35 minutes, or until the cake is light golden brown, the sides are beginning to contract from the metal, and the cake springs back when lightly touched in the center.

– Remove the pan from the oven. Using a thinbladed knife, gently release any portion of the cake sticking to the long sides of the pan. Cool for 30 minutes, then remove from pan.