Last week, I made this cake for my final Wilton Fondant and Gum Paste class. Here is the recipe as promised, with a few minor modifications. This cake smells heavenly while cooking in the oven (from the bananas), and texture-wise, I’ve been told that it’s similar to carrot cake. Manipulating the cream cheese frosting isn’t as easy as using buttercream. It was actually quite messy because it was drooping everywhere. But this worked out well for my unpretentious “baby shower-like” cake. I am planning to make this cake for my mom on Mother’s Day 
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 can (8oz) crushed pineapple, well drained
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 2 cups chopped firm ripe banana
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 16 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup butter, room temperature
- 2 pounds confectioners’ sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 to 1 cup chopped pecans
Method
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and cinnamon together into mixing bowl several times.
- Add eggs and oil to the dry ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon until ingredients are moistened.
- Stir in vanilla, pineapple and 1 cup pecans. Stir in the bananas.
- Spoon the batter into 3 well-greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans.
- *Bake for 25 to 30 minutes,or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. (see note)
- Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto cooling rack. Cool completely before frosting.
- Cream Cheese Frosting:
Combine cream cheese and butter; cream until smooth. Add powdered sugar, beating with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla. - *Frost the tops of all 3 layers, stack and then frost sides. Sprinkle top evenly with the 1/2 to 1 cup chopped pecans. (see note)
Notes:
- I baked the cake in a 8″X8″X2″ square pan in 2 separate batches. Each batch was about half the batter and it took close to 45 minutes to be done. The batter was still able to rise after it sat on the counter for 45 minutes (phew!!).
- I then used a cake level to cut each of the layers to two, making it a 4 layer cake. BIG MISTAKE! there was so much stuff in the cake that it made a huge mess when I tried to cut the cake. Next time, I’ll just get another pan.
- Use Wilton’s cake lifter to stack the cakes on top of each other so that the layers do not crumble in half in front of your eyes. THIS IS A HEAVY CAKE.
- Because this was a decorated cake, I did not sprinkle the pecans on top per the instructions.
- Again, THIS IS A HEAVY CAKE! One layer of cake cardboard cake board was not able to hold the weight of this cake without caving in down the center. Use something sturdier than a piece of cardboard, or simply get 2 layers of cardboard.
- The cream cheese frosting gets messy and droopy as you work with them. Putting them back into the fridge seems to help solidify the frosting.
