Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Sometimes when you're me recipes come about by accident.  Take this cake for instance.  I wasn't planning on making a cake this weekend.  It was actually the very last thing I had in mind this weekend.  But when I went to break off a banana from our bunch on Sunday for breakfast I ripped the stems off the entire bunch.  Oops.  Which meant all of those four bananas had to be used or eaten.  Stat.  So I was going to make banana bread, but after making a loaf of Zucchini Cornbread Saturday I wanted to do something a little different.  I decided that the logical thing to do was to make the banana cake that I remembered from Susan Spicer's cookbook.  I grabbed the cookbook to make sure we had everything and somehow we did.  It was clearly meant to happen.  Everything from the unintentional banana demolition to the Zucchini Cornbread was pointing me towards this cake.  So I baked a cake.  And for the record, this was my very first attempt at a layer cake  So any issues with frosting, etc. should be excused.  I tried.  It might not be pretty but I should get some points for effort.  One thing I will say is that I wish I had just a little more frosting to spread between the layers of cake.  There just wasn't enough to cover the whole cake and still have a nice layer in there in the middle.  Oh well.

My cake was yummy.  Really yummy.  I had two pieces.  And I know that I have a sweet tooth, but I never have two pieces of cake.  I typically don't like cake that much.  Cupcakes yes, cake no.  Cakes are never moist enough for me and I don't like most frostings.  But this cake was very moist and the peanut butter cream cheese frosting was delicious.  I licked my fingers after frosting the cake.  A lot.  I love peanut butter and chocolate together.  With or without banana that flavor combo is a winner in my book.  But when you add in the banana here it all just comes together so well.  It's delicious.  I briefly considered eating a piece for breakfast, but I decided that was entirely too gluttonous.  I guess that I'm just going to have to wait until after dinner.

Recipe after the jump!

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer's New Orleans

By Susan Spicer

INGREDIENTS:

2-1/2 cups cake flour (we used 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour since we didn't have cake flour)

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1-1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 2 large bananas)

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup buttermilk

1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, plus additional butter for greasing the pans

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus 1/4 cup for garnish

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  Butter and flour two 8-inch round cake pans.

Sift the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl.  Whisk together the banana, vanilla, and buttermilk in a medium bowl.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy; add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until well mixed.  Add the dry ingredients and banana mixture to the butter mixture in three alternating stages (dry, wet, dry), ending with the dry.  Fold in the chocolate chips.

Divide the batter between the pans and bake for about 25 minutes, or until springy in the center.  Allow cakes to cool in pans for about 10 minutes.  Run a knife around the rim of the pan to loosen cake, then invert to release cake.  Cool completely on wire racks.  Spread icing between the layers, and on the top and sides of the cake.  Sprinkle with chocolate chips, if desired.

Serve.