Banana Pudding Cake

Years ago, probably in high school, I made banana pudding for my dad. It was a baked banana pudding which is apparently the proper way to make it. Well, don't tell that to my dad. He straight up told me he preferred my grandmother's instant vanilla pudding, cool whip, refrigerator version. Not sure if I've ever made baked banana pudding since then! I learned my lesson. When it comes to something my grandmother makes and my dad likes, don't mess with it.

So it makes no sense that when my grandmother called me on Saturday to see if I was going to make my dad a birthday cake I decided to make him a banana pudding...cake.

I've never made a banana cake and even though I love bananas, I've never loved banana bread/baked things. This cake changed my mind though. Very good. Very. Very. The vanilla wafer toffee was made but I didn't like the look of it so much (although it tasted yummy) so I just used vanilla wafer crumbs. Oh, and the vanilla whipped cream? What isn't there to love about that?

Banana Pudding Cake

from Sugar Plum~Makes 10 servings

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large bananas, mashed
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large egg yolks
3/4 cup buttermilk

Vanilla Wafer Toffee
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped chopped vanilla wafer cookies

Vanilla Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large mixing bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together butter, oil, sugar and banana until creamy - about 1-2 minutes. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla until combined - about 1 minute. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually beat in flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk, until combined.

Place batter in pan; bake 30 minutes or until well risen and golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the Vanilla Wafer Toffee, melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat; whisk in brown sugar, cream and salt and bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Keep whisking and cooking for a minute or two, until sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from heat and stir in vanilla wafers until well coated. Scatter wafer pieces over a greased cookie sheet. Bake 8 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly. Cool on waxed paper, breaking toffee into smaller pieces.

To make the Vanilla Whipped Cream, beat cream, sugar and vanilla together in a large mixing bowl, using a mixer on high speed, until stiff peaks form.

To assemble the cake, first remove sides from springform pan. Pipe or spread whipped cream over cake. Sprinkle vanilla wafer toffee on top of cake.

Farm Birthday Cake

Baby Maddox is growing up! Last weekend he celebrated his 1st birthday party. Stephanie had the most adorable decorations and party food.

Here is his farm birthday cake. The top tier was vanilla butter cake with buttercream and buttercream fondant. The bottom tier was chocolate cake with buttercream and buttercream fondant. I used a new vanilla cake recipe which I'll have to share very soon because it was delicious! I managed to cover both tiers and make all the "accessories" with one tub of fondant. My favorite addition was the tiny ears of fondant corn! I also worked extra hard on the cow and pig's ears, ha.

I also made Maddox a little cake to tear up. It was just butter cake with vanilla buttercream. The ducks of course are fondant and I used piping gel for the water. Maddox enjoyed chewing on the ducks.

Not the party hat!!!

Cake makes everything better!

Too cute!

Review-Duff Cake Products

Today I began prepping for to make Maddox's birthday cake with a trip to Michael's for a few supplies.

Before I left I remembered I had a 50% coupon from my last trip to Michaels (a couple of months ago). Michael's always has the best coupons. I learned back in the day when I was taking my cake classes that they'll even if you don't have a special 40% off coupon when you go to checkout they will find you one. So even after I read that my coupon expired June 12 I was still pretty confident they'd let me use it.

Mostly I was wanting to use my 50% off coupon on a tub of fondant. That's right, bought fondant was on my cake supply list. Ever since I started baking I've never used bought fondant and have relied on my marshmallow fondant recipe. Back a few months ago when I made Lilly's 1st birthday cake I decided to try Duff Goldman's new line of buttercream fondant. At $20 for a 2 lb. tub I was really hoping it was a good investment and I was very happy to find that it tasted just as good as the homemade kind. Really, it's good!

The main convienence for me buying fondant instead of making it is that my kitchen is super hot in the summer. I'm super cautious about fondant falling apart before I get it on the cake. For Maddox's cake I'm planning on using a combination of bought and homemade fondant. I'll probably use Duff's to cover the cakes and the homemade for the accents. I'm sooo excited about the accents for this cake.

All of Duff's cake products are 25% off this week. This is a good thing since it turns out I got in the most evil Michael's employee line and she threw away my expired coupon. She even had extra 40% coupons lying around on the register that she didn't even offer to let me use. That's not the Michael's spirit! But in the end I still came out pretty good with the 25% off each item instead of 50% off one item. So there!

I also got a fondant smoother since I lost my original one a long time ago. The Duff version and the Wilton version were the same price. So since Duff's was 25% off (and they were pretty much exactly the same) I got that one.

Also, I bought some fondant "texture tiles" for the farm themed cake. It came in a pack of two-brick and wood grain. I was not fully decided if I was going to put a barn on the cake or not but once I made up my mind.

For my last cake project I thought I was going to need some black fondant. I bought this gel color kit and ended up using the teal and gold as well. The black was amazing and I only needed a few drops to get it correct instead of the usual entire bottle with Wilton gel colors. The teal and gold turned out really vivid as well.

Lilly's 1st Birthday

These were for a co-worker's little girl Lilly's 1st birthday. Lilly was having a garden party. Very sophisticated for a one year old! But when you are named Lilly you need to have a garden party! The cupcakes were mostly lemon cake with vanilla buttercream. I did make some vanilla cupcakes too for the little kids. I'd almost forgotten about how great this buttercream recipe is.

Three years ago...

...I made a batch of peanut butter cookies.

Last night I was putting off going to sleep and after seeing another blog's birthday post I thought "hmm...when is this blog's birthday?" All I could remember was that I started it in the summer, two years ago maybe? So I looked it up and was way excited to find out that it's today! And it's been three years! What good timing!

I forgot that I started it right after graduating college. The main reason for starting it was just to remember all the recipes I tried and liked (or ones I didn't so I wouldn't try them again). And I was just out of college, starting to look for teaching jobs, and had not much else to do besides bake. I can't believe it's been three years! I still remember making that batch of peanut butter cookies and I'm pretty sure I've not made any since then. But I've come a long way since that first batch of cookies!

After reminiscing for a bit I thought, oh no, now I have to bake something. I mean, I couldn't know it was my baking blog's birthday and knowingly pass the day by and not bake. Pretty much instantly I knew what I was going to bake.

Strawberry Shortcakes (how cute is the word shortcakes?)

makes 6 servings

modified slightly from Joy the Baker

For the berries:

1 pint fresh strawberries

3 tablespoons of sugar

For the whipped cream:

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the shortcakes:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Slice the strawberries and blackberries and place in a medium sized bowl. Sprinkle with sugar. Stir. Cover and place in the fridge to macerate for at least 2 hours.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or using simple a bowl and whisk, whip the cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract together until soft peaks form. Cover place in the fridge for later.

Now let’s make the biscuits!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place a rack in the center of the oven.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl whisk together the egg, vanilla extract and heavy cream. Cut the cold butter into small pieces and, using your fingers, incorporate the butter into the flour mixture. Work quickly, the butter and flour mixture will look like coarse crumbs.

Make a well in the center of the butter and flour mixture and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix just until the dough comes together. Dump out onto a clean, floured surface and bring it together with your hands. Knead once or twice then pat the dough out into a rectangle roughly 7-inches long, 4 -inches tall and 1-inch thick. Cut the dough into six equal pieces.

Place the shortcakes onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the tops of each shortcake with a bit of cream and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake for 15-20 minutes until nicely browned.

Remove from the oven. Cool completely.

To assemble, cut the shortcakes in half, top with a few spoonfuls of berries and juice, whipped cream and the biscuit top. Dang good.

Rainbow Birthday Cake

My cousins Allison and Amy have birthdays 2 days apart. They asked me to make their cake. Amy wanted chocolate cake, Allison wanted vanilla. They did agree on light blue frosting.

So I kept it simple.

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but only on the outside!

I used Magnolia's Birthday Cake recipe with Cream Cheese Icing.

And it was reallllly good.

Luau Birthday Cake

Sarah, daughter of a friend who used to work with me at Koontz, had a full out well decorated Luau 10th Birthday! When I dropped the cake off by the pool she was decked out in a grass skirt and everything!

For the bottom I was going for a sort of tiki-hut look after seeing some cakes on CakeCentral.com. The seashells and starfish were made using candy melts and a Wilton candy mold. The sand is brown sugar and graham crackers (and very tasty!).

I hope Sarah enjoys it for her Luau party :)