If you are looking for my Astronaut Wives Club food post, never fear! It will post tomorrow. But for now, get ready to sink your teeth into banana cake! I had to look this recipe up recently to make banana cake for the little one, so I thought everyone else could use a reminder about how good this cake is, too. Enjoy!
This week’s recipe was all about what I had laying around the house. I was out of cheese and tuna, which knocked a whole bunch of mid-century recipes off my radar. But what I DID have was sour cream and bananas, so I did what any self-respecting person would do.
I made a cake.
This is Banana Sour Cream Cake!
And her name is Ruth, too!
AuthorRetroRuth
From Mrs. David Kahn, 1973
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Combine bananas and sour cream at medium speed in a blender until smooth. Set aside.
Combine ½ cup sugar, cinnamon, nuts, and melted butter, mixing well. Fold in remaining bananas. Set aside.
Cream softened butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and soda. Add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream mixture.
Spread half of the batter into greased 9-inch pan (*I found that I needed a larger pan than that.). Sprinkle with half of the sugar mixture. Repeat the process, using the remaining batter and sugar mixture.
Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 30 minutes or until done. (*Mine took about 50 minutes)
Ingredients
Directions
Combine bananas and sour cream at medium speed in a blender until smooth. Set aside.
Combine ½ cup sugar, cinnamon, nuts, and melted butter, mixing well. Fold in remaining bananas. Set aside.
Cream softened butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and soda. Add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream mixture.
Spread half of the batter into greased 9-inch pan (*I found that I needed a larger pan than that.). Sprinkle with half of the sugar mixture. Repeat the process, using the remaining batter and sugar mixture.
Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 30 minutes or until done. (*Mine took about 50 minutes)
Notes
This fun recipe is from a Detroit area newspaper. I found a bunch of these on eBay and bought them all. I am in love with the little blurbs about the everyday life of the recipe author!
Once great thing about having a one year-old in the house is that I have a never-ending supply of bananas in various stages of ripeness.
When this recipe called for three very ripe bananas and one ripe banana, I was all over it. As back-ups, I even had a sort of ripe banana AND an unripe banana.
Yes, she does eat that many bananas.
And, since we had used the Small Assistant’s bananas, we thought she should have a crack at it as well.
“She seems to like it.”
“Ow! Ow! She’s biting my finger!”
The Verdict: Good, Even For Small Assistants
From The Tasting Notes –
The cake was good, and with the topping it tasted like a cross between a coffee cake and a banana bread. The crumb was soft and moist with a good texture. It was sweet, but not too sweet. But it did need some salt! You could definitely taste the lack of salt. So if you like banana bread or coffee cake, you should try this recipe, but just add about a 1/2 tsp or so of salt to the batter.
It’s 5:45 AM Coffee and out the door. This would have been nice with the coffee. Remember who the Mid Century people were. Use what you got, make it work. Today if they can’t find everything they don’t cook.Too often I have to run to the market or for burgers even though there is pasta or something in the house. Kids are even worse.
Oooh. I want some.
What timing! I had several bananas in various stages of ripeness sitting around. I baked this in my 10-inch bundt pan for 40 minutes and it turned out fine. I think there’s too much cinnamon, next time I’ll use only 1 tsp., and probably use 2 bananas in the crumble mixture. Yes to the 1/2 t. salt.
I might give this a try, but first I will venture into the kitchen to see if I can ‘discover some very ripe bananas’ in there!
Very good! The cake is nicely tender. I took bumblebee’s suggestions and used less cinnamon and more banana. I baked mine in a 9×13 pan for 45 mins. The second banana increased the moisture content of the crumble, so it was more of a pour than a crumble at that point. I topped the cake only; none in a Mid-century middle layer. The family loved it as a coffee cake. The only reason it got four stars instead of five was our present day unfamiliarity with cooked banana pieces, which we’ll get used to in time, I’m sure.