June 28: Pearl's Banana Cake

Please accept my apology.  This week the Saturday Cake had to be postponed to a Sunday Cake!  It was not due to a scheduling conflict, it was due to the damn bananas not being ripe enough yesterday.  I bought them on Wednesday and expected, with it being summertime, that they would ripen by Saturday.  The bananas showed no trace of ripening on Thursday, so I put them in a produce bag with an apple.  On Friday, when they showed no improvement, I added a second apple and stashed them in a paper bag.  Yesterday, I separated each them from their main stem because my husband read that to keep bananas from getting ripe, one should keep them on their stem together and wrap the stem tightly with plastic wrap.

Finally!  Last night they smelled like ripe bananas, but still had no brown spots.  This morning, behold:  ripe bananas!

This cake recipe comes from my folder of clippings.  It is from the December 2002 issue of Gourmet in the section of recipes received in letters to the magazine.  To tell the truth, I am not entirely sure that I didn't clip the page for the Italian Pot Roast recipe sent by another reader.  But, at some point in the last 13 years, this clipping found itself filed in the "cake" section of the accordion folder.

Top of the cake

Mama Judy used to make a banana cake when my mom was growing up, but we don't know the recipe.  Mom seems to recall that the bananas in Judy's cake filling were mashed and the cake was frosted with seven-minute frosting.

This cake calls for sliced bananas and whipped cream frosting. Everyone at our house loves banana pudding in the summer (actually year-round), so this creamy banana cake seems like a good one to try.  The cake is plain cake, no bananas, and is somewhat reminiscent of a soft, rich, Nilla Wafer .  It is made in two layers with whipped cream and sliced bananas between the layers, then more whipped cream and bananas on top.

The filling between layers.

We all agree that it's a good cake, just not as interesting or as cohesive as we would like.  The cake, the cream and the banana exist on non-intersecting planes - they are too distinct from each other to make a really fine dessert.  Perhaps after a night in the refrigerator, they will meld.  I would like to research the type of banana cake that Judy made and find a suitable version.

But, I think I WILL try that Italian Pot Roast recipe.

Next Saturday: Yellow Cake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting

June 20: A Pound Cake for Father's Day

 
This weekend has been a busy one; packing up and delivering Autumn to The Georgia Governors Honors Program while still having some fun for Fathers' Day.  I knew that I would only have time for a tried-and-true recipe and not a new baking adventure.  I still wanted to make a special cake for Keith to enjoy on Fathers' Day.  I was relieved when Keith's chose, not surprisingly, a pound cake.

Since next week will mark my 26th week of cakes, I thought I would list my "keepers," so far.  Of course, I have not included the recipes from my regular repertoire, just the new recipes that I have tried for the first time as Saturday Cakes.  You will notice that a Caramel Cake is not in this list (I shall endeavor to perfect the caramel cake in the next six months, honest, I mean it).

Victoria Sponge (January 17)
Mace Cake (February 28)
Feud Cake (April 11)
Mexican Chocolate Cake (May 2)
Queen of Sheba (May 9)
Pecan Molasses Bundt with Bourbon Glaze (May 30)
Basil Pound Cake (June 14)

Have a happy Fathers' Day and celebrate the Summer Solstice with some cake!

Next Saturday: Pearl's Banana Cake

June 14: Basil Pound Cake

I come by it honest and the proof is in the cake this week, or rather in the cake recipe.

I have always had a slightly obsessive relationship with magazines.  I always want to be the first one to read a magazine when I buy it or receive it by subscription.  While I realize that most magazines are read at the newsstand or grocery store checkout line and then put back, I still prefer to be the first in the house to read MY magazine.  I remember buying my first Seventeen at the newsstand at the Greyhound terminal to read on my solo bus trip to  Granna's house in Tifton during a middle school summer.  I kept it and flipped through the pages for the trends that whole summer, and after returning home I kept it because it reminded me of my trip to Granna's.  I still have the issues of French Vogue that I bought in Paris during my gap year in the late 1980s.

There have been times in my life when my budget was so tight, that I felt like a shiny magazine was the only luxury I could afford.  I got to bring one home and carve out time to savor the perfumed pages of a fashion magazine, or the envy-producing photo array from a decorating magazine, or the inspiring recipes from a food & lifestyle periodical.  Cheap thrills.

When I was growing up, my mom had an unwritten rule that had been handed down from Mama Judy, no person in our house was allowed to open and read a magazine until that magazine had first been read by the person to whom it belonged by subscription or off the rack.  Likewise, no magazine should be cut-up, thrown-away or recycled unless by that owner.  Mama Judy was a notorious "purger" of other things, like the clothes she designed and made for my mom but then donated as soon as my mom outgrew them.

Magazines were different.  Judy held on to magazines, especially decorating magazines.  She kept stacks of magazines to revisit for design inspiration the next time she redecorated or rearranged the furniture.  She kept pictures from magazines to catalyze clothing creations and help steer her pattern making.  My mother embraced the practice and passed it down to me.  We graduated from keeping stacks of magazines, to piles of pages.  Like my mom, I keep folders of articles torn from magazines and newspapers; folders full of gift ideas, book reviews, home decorating dreams, travel tips, even gift wrapping inspiration.  The largest folder is the recipe file, an accordion file with sections for different types of dishes.  The Saturday Cakes are helping me tackle the "cakes" category.

The week before last, my mother gave me a folder of cake recipes that she had been saving but had never gotten around to baking.  This Basil Pound Cake is from Mom's collection of clippings; it is from the July 1984 (!) issue of Better Homes and Gardens and is on a page filled with recipes for foods found in American summer gardens.



I thought is was interesting that the recipe recommended baking the cake in the 9x13x2-inch baking pan (or a loaf pan).  I had only ever made pound cake in a loaf or tube pan.  Also, the recipe included a buttercream frosting.  I had never had frosting on a pound cake except at a wedding!  The cake turned out very well.  Autumn proclaimed that she liked it better than plain pound cake, and she is the only child we have who doesn't like frosting.  Although it only contains one tablespoonful, the fresh basil gives the cake a mild flavor that is green and bright.  I think it is brighter and more distinctive without the frosting.  Keith, a big fan of buttercream frosting, can't decide whether he likes it better with or without.  I think that I will make it next time without the frosting, but accompany it with a fruit topping (fig preserves? lemon curd?).  Or perhaps I will get a serving idea from a new magazine...

Next Saturday:  A Pound Cake for Father's Day

June 6: Spice Islands (?) Cake

Last week, while shopping for vintage books at a thrift store, our son, Colin, found a treat for me.  He found a set of activity books from the American Girls Collection for their character named Samantha who lived at the turn of the twentieth century.  Apparently, American Girls' Samantha also enjoys cooking, making crafts, trying-on new outfits and producing plays.  Sadly, there was only one cake recipe in the cook book from the set.  The recipe is for gingerbread, which reminded me of my Spice Islands Cake.

The Spice Islands Cake is one of my signature cakes.  I developed the recipe in order to replicate the delicious taste of the Allgood Pineapple Upside-Down Cake with whipped cream on top.  It was one of the recipes I created and tested when I was living in Washington, DC.  Whenever I had a difficult day (or week) at work, I would cook to relax.  I would take the resulting cookies, cakes, etc. to my office the next day.  I made many versions of this cake trying to get the spices, texture and appearance right.  I was a regular reader of Southern Living magazine and in 2004, I decided I was ready to submit this recipe to their annual recipe contest.

At that time, I called this "Pineapple Spice Layer Cake."  I obsessed over getting the written instructions simple and foolproof.  I even gave the recipe to a tester or two to see if they could follow the instructions I had written and arrive at an appropriate result.

The recipe uses three different types of sugar (brown, light brown and confectioners) and that year the contest was sponsored by Domino Sugar.  I figured that by specifying "Domino" sugars in my recipe, I would be a shoe-in for a brand-sponsored prize, if not a grand prize.

I did not win.

After I moved back home to Atlanta, I submitted this recipe again to the Southern Living contest.  But this was after my trip to Indonesia, my diagnosis of gluten intolerance, and a couple of years of sour grapes reading the "winning" recipes in issues of the magazine.  I decided that "Pineapple Spice Layer Cake"  was a boring name and that the name had cost me dearly in the judges' assessment.  For my second submission, in an attempt to take back some power from Indonesia, I named the cake Spice Islands.  I thought that it was clever.

Layers showing filling

I still did not win.

Everyone loves the cake, so the name must be my impediment to recipe contest glory.  Keith believes that my mistake in renaming the cake was two-fold; I named it after a place where I suffered terribly, and it could be confused with the Spice Island brand of herbs and spices.  I am now thinking of calling it Equator Cake since pineapples, cinnamon, ginger and cloves originated and a principally grown there.

Close-up of frosting

This (insert name here) cake consists of three layers of cake, with pineapple filling that is like a pineapple curd.  It is covered with a thick layer of stabilized whipped cream that contains even more pineapple.

Whether I submit this recipe to a contest again, or not, it is absolutely a winner.  The cake is moist and tender.  The filling is tangy with loads of pineapple flavor.  The whipped cream frosting has the creaminess to balance the spice and fruity tang of the cake and filling.  I wish all of my "pastimes" worked out this well.

Next Saturday:  Basil Pound Cake