By RetroRuth
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!
- 3 very ripe bananas, sliced
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts
- 1 1/2 T melted butter
- 1 banana, sliced
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp soda
- (*1/2 tsp salt – my addition!)
- Combine bananas and sour cream at medium speed in blender until smooth. Set aside.
- Combine 1/2 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 batter into greased 9-inch pan (*I found that I needed a larger pan than that.). Sprinkle with half of sugar mixture. Repeat process, using remaining batter and sugar mixture.
- Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until done. (*Mine took about 50 minutes)
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.
As a sidenote – I didn’t have a 9 inch square pan, so I use a 11×8 inch pan. That pan was almost too small. Which means a 9 inch pan would have been way too small. I don’t know how I ended up with so much batter, but if I had this to do over again I would out this in a 13×9 pan. The baking time for the 11×8 pan in the oven was about 20 mins longer than the recipe called for. It was dense, and by the time the center was baked the top had become overly brown.
Not that it stopped Tom from digging in.
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.
OMG that red hair is killing me!
This looks so good! Duly noted on the salt and bookmarked for our family reunion in a month!
Your baking assistant has beautiful red hair!
Such a cute family!
It’s true! I have two one year olds in the house and i’ve never bought so many banana’s in my LIFE. I’m going to try this recipe, thanks Ruth!
-Brie
Mrs. Kahn doesn’t look very enthusiastic about her cake.
I grew up in Sterling Heights. It is a pretty big suburb so I don’t know Ruth Kahn but I recognized that cake before I read that the recipe was from the Detroit area. That recipe has been passed around, for sure.
I'm puzzled. Do you mush up the three overripe bananas in the batter and use the sliced only ripe bananas for layering?
I just took this out of the oven! I heeded the advice and used a 9×13 pan. Took 28 mins. to cook.
I made only a couple minor changes. In the topping I used brown sugar instead of white. I didn’t have the 4th banana to slice, so I threw in a handful of raisins instead. We have nut allergies, so those are always omitted.
Smells wonderful and judging from the little corner I sampled, it tastes great too! Thanks for passing this one on. I’m getting tired of always making a loaf of banana bread with my black bananas.
This is pretty much exactly the same as Martha Stewart's banana bread recipe, which is THE BEST banana bread on the planet. 🙂
This was a delightful recipe! It tasted really really good, even though I used peanuts and I’m not a fan of how they taste baked, but all in all, an impressive recipe! I’m so so so glad I’ve found this website – that’s one way for me to escape from the dreary today back into the 1950s-1960s, because pretty much no one else gets it. Ahh, I wish I lived in the 50s-60s, but what are you going to do. Anyway, thank you so so much!
Being from Detroit I simply must try this. And who can resist commenting on your adorable little girl with her lovely red hair!