Someone on the street today said (from a safe distance) “How are you?” .
“Great!” I said. Confident for several seconds before adding, “Ya know… scared and anxious but also… great?”
That’s where we are these days. In two realities: one of occasional fear and constant uncertainty, the other of just normal TGIF feelings. We can be both places. That can be ok for now. It must really feel that way especially if you have young, playful kiddos at home. I see y’all out there!
I think of all the grocery store workers, health car professionals, and deliver folks out there also uncertain, also great, and also very much out there for us. Bless them, truly.
As baking is my offering in times of ease and times of trouble, I made us a cake. I developed and shot this recipe 2 weeks (aka a million years) ago. I think it still holds strong. The cake base is a pleasingly simple butter and oil cake with a dash of cinnamon and a handful of pecans. If eggs are hard for you to come by, perhaps save this recipe for more egg-plentiful days – those will come too. If you don’t have bananas on hand (or you’re saving them for banana bread), this cake would also work with thawed, drained, and patted-dry frozen berries.
Be well and happy baking!
This yellow cake is a little wonder. (Double it and you have a dreamy two-layer cake.) It’s the texture of a boxed cake – tender and soft – without the weird chemical taste box mixes have (and maybe I secretly crave sometimes). The secret to the tender texture of this cake is a mix of fat: butter for taste and oil of bounce and pliability.
See… oil is 100% fat – no milk solids or water – so it helps maintain the moisture of the cake for days.
Cream together room temperature butter, granulated sugar, and oil together until soft and fluffy. The mixture will hold peeks like it’s well-aerated (because it is!).
Add the eggs, one at a time, whipping to fluff the batter after each addition.
The batter will become the most lovely pale yellow.
This cake calls for a very good dose of vanilla extract. Please oblige.
Combine the dry ingredients before adding them to the butter, sugar, and egg mixture. We want to make sure the spice and leavening is evenly distributed throughout the batter.
Partially fold the dry ingredients into the butter mixture.
Add the whole milk and stir until well combined and no dry patches are hiding at the bottom of the bowl.
After the batter smooths, I like to bring the electric mixer back to the batter to whip it for three minutes. We’re aerating the batter from start to finish.
Stir in crushed pecans if you’d like a little crunch. I think it’s nice.
Before the batter goes in the pan, we have some bananas to foster.
Lightly grease a tall-sided 8-inch round cake pan. This is a whole-lotta cake so please trust me when I say you’ll need a 3-inch deep pan.
Place butter and sugar in the pan and place the pan in the preheating oven for the butter to melt.
Use a spatula to spread the melty sugarbutter across the pan – the sugar will still be grainy and that’s A-OK.
Now for the bananas – you’ll want two ripe but not overly soft bananas. These aren’t quite banana bread bananas, just before that stage.
Slice each banana in two and then cut each half down the center. You’ll get four pieces out of each banana.
Arrange it cut-side-down, however pleases you, in the pan atop the melty sugarbutter bottom.
Spoon the cake batter on top of the bananas.
Spread the batter into an even layer across the pan, edge to edge.
We’ll bake this cake a good long while. There’s a lot of batter and bananas to cook and caramelize. 40 minutes – maybe more.
The cake, when done, will come to a deep golden brown. Test the doneness with a toothpick – a toothpick with a few moist crumbs (not wet batter) means the cake is good and done!
We’re mostly there! Now we just have to get this beauty out of the pan.
Allow the cake to cool for 5 to 7 minutes after it comes out of the oven. We want the fruit and sugars at the bottom to be warm so they release when we invert the pan.
Run a butterknife around the cake between the cake and the pan, loosening.
Place a plate or platter atop the pan. Use pot holders to somehow hold both the pan and platter at the same time, and turn the whole thing upside down. You should hear and feel the cake release from the pan to the plate. Guess what? You’re a badass.
There’s no need to wait – what’s better than warm cake?
Top with ice cream or whipped cream and enjoy!
Photos with my friend Jon Melendez.
Upside Down Bananas Foster Cake
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- Cook Time: 0 hours
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Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick / 2 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the pan
- 1 1/4 cups (156 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 cup (60 milliliters) vegetable or another neutral oil
- 1 cups (200 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (120 milliliters) whole milk, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans (optional)
For the Banana Part Bottom / Top:
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup (66 grams) lightly packed brown sugar
- 2 ripe but firm bananas
Instructions
- To make the cake, first preheat oven to 350 degrees; position the rack in the middle. Grease an 8-inch round cake pans. This needs to be a tall-sided cake pan (3-inches high). If you only have a 9-inch tall cake pan – that will do, too.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda.
- In a large bowl beat the softened butter, oil and sugar together with an electric hand beater until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.
- Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating on medium for 1 minute between each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.
- Add the dry ingredients to the batter and fold together with a spatula until just combined. Add the milk and fold together with a spatula until just combined. Use the electric hand beaters to whip the batter on medium speed for 3 minutes until well aerated. Stir in the pecans, if using.
- Place the butter and brown sugar in the pan and place the pan in the oven until the butter melts. The sugar won’t dissolve just yet. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to spread the butter and sugar into an even layer.
- Peel bananas and carefully slice lengthwise and in half. Fashion the bananas around the pan, cut side down.
- Spoon batter over the sugar and bananas and use a spatula to smooth to an even layer reaching the edges of the pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes (it’s a long back because there’s a lot of cake batter) or until the cake is golden, domed, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Keep an eye on the cake after 35 minutes and reassess how much time it might need in your oven.
- Transfer the cake to a cooling rack for 5 to 7 minutes. You’ll want to invert the cake while it’s still very warm to ensure that all the caramelized banana goodness comes out of the cake pan. Run a butterknife along the edges of the pan to loosen the sides. Place a platter on top of the cake in the pan and, using pot holders, decisively invert to pan. You should hear the cake release onto the platter. Remove the cake pan and if there is a banana piece left behind in the pan, just use the butterknife to transfer it to the pan and onto the cake. No one will know a thing.
- Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. This cake will store, covered in the refrigerator for up to three days though it’s best the within two days of baking.
Kimberly
Ugh this looks AMAZING… I’ve made a cake like this before but the yellow cake was far to dense and heavy. Yours looks so floofy? (yes, flOOfy)
Something I would really like for you to shed some baker-wisdom on for me and I’d be soo grateful: almost every recipe I’ve read begs the reader “PLEASE DO NOT OVER-MIX YOUR BATTER AFTER ADDING THE FLOUR!!” (Maybe not that dramatically but its hammered home pretty hard!) And recently I have seen this and one other that calls for some good whipping at the end (the other recipe used the reverse-creaming method which adds the flour first so as you can imagine this blew my mind even more). So how does your cake (and the other I saw) look so beautiful and tender without being chewy or tough from over-mixing?????
Grace
This is a fantastic recipe! I’ve never made an upside cake of any kind before, and this turned out really well. The cake was dense and moist all at the same time, and I really loved the subtle cinnamon undertones throughout. I topped it with dollops of a cream cheese, mascarpone, yogurt sort of concoction, which was delight. I would be tempted to blend a banana into the cake in addition to the ones topping it, just to up the banana flavor a bit, and part of me also wants to experiment with making this cake a little more caramelly, maybe even a little gooey, so I’m think of maybe doubling the amount of butter and sugar that’ll go into the pan to caramelize the bananas (2/3 of a cup of brown sugar, and 6 tablespoons of butter).
Yumi
I jus made it! So yummy can’t stop next slice…
Lena
Great cake, nice texture. Very much like moist banana bread.
Kate
Oh my Joy! I made a mess of this cake!
I used a springform pan(DONT DO IT) as (I didn’t have a high sided cake pan) and my buttery sugary goodness leaked out.(why did I think it wouldn’t???)
I forged ahead anyway! The heavenly aroma filled my kitchen, I waited the 5 minutes to cool, inverted it into a plate and half my cake fell to the counter & half to the plate! I scooped up the half on the counter, put it with the half on the plate and called it done. I sliced (or scooped) it onto my prettiest plates to serve and added ice cream. It was absolutely delish! Thank you for sharing!
Stay safe & well friend ?
Jody
Thanks Joy,
This turned out great. The addition of pecans totally elevated the dish, Next time, I’ll follow your advice from above and add 2 tablespoons of rum to the pan. That was the only thing missing for me.
Thanks again! and please continue doing these smaller recipes during this time, they are a perfect size for a small family quarantining together. I found flour the other day, but have yet to find butter. Recipes that call for less than 2 cups of flour or 1 stick of butter are usually doable. Cheers!
Samantha
Definitely buying bananas next time I’ll leave the house grocery shopping!!
Felicia
I made this for my dad’s birthday and it was a hit! With coronavirus, the cake was really the only celebratory thing we could do for him so I’m delighted this turned out so well. I also loved that this calls for basic baking ingredients and nothing I have to track down at multiple stores! I was so proud of myself for the “upside down” element of this cake working out too lol.
joythebaker
I’m so proud of you too! Happy Birthday to your dad – I’m so glad this cake was a hit!
Gabby
What if I’m sheltering in place and half all ingredients except I have half and half but not milk???
Karin Gensel
I don’t have whole milk, would full fat canned coconut milk work ok?
joythebaker
Yes I think that would be delicious!
Mary
I made this cake tonight and it was just what we needed for these times. OMG it is SO delicious! Buttery, banana, caramely goodness. May put little bourbon in next time. I so appreciate you creating and sharing this with us.
joythebaker
Bourbon or a splash of rum would be a wonderful idea!