Go Bananas in June

I know it’s June and June is strawberry month but I’d like to say a word for the banana. Yes, that old, common staple of the produce shelf which is available all year around and is probably not an exciting fruit this time of year. Well, I’ve learned a lot about this old stand-by fruit and found a recipe that is really great.

I love to go to estate sales and auctions to buy old cookbooks. The more beat up and used they look, the more treasures they usually have inside. When you open one that has writing all over the inside of the front and back covers and in all the margarines, one that has stains on most of the pages, and where such things as old pay slips are stuck inside with recipes scrawled over them with titles like “Bessie’s crumb pudding”—those are the treasures. It always makes me feel a little sad as well. I imagine a housewife and mother lovingly copying down her favorite “receipts” and cooking or baking them for the Ladies’ Aid, church potluck, family reunion or, even better, her own dearly loved family. Now her beloved stash of recipes is in the hands of someone that doesn’t know her or her family. And yet, they live on.

It’s another thing to actually try these old recipes, however. They are usually a list of ingredients, written in ink, sometimes illegible. There are rarely, if ever, any directions for pan sizes or techniques. It was serendipitous, then, when I had a faded-ink, 3x5 lined card, yellowed with age, fall out of an old cookbook titled simply “Banana Cake” just when I had two overly-ripe bananas on the counter.

I decided to try it out and was sure it would be okay for us, if not for our guests at the inn.
Without directions or pan sizes, I made my own changes. It was delicious. So delicious that our housekeeper sampled it and wanted the recipe—and my husband, who doesn’t usually like banana cakes or breads or muffins—loved it.

Here first, is the recipe exactly as it appeared:

1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup shortening
2 eggs beaten
¼ c. sour milk
1 c. banana pulp
2 c. flour (cake flour)
1 pinch salt
1 teas b soda
1 teas vinegar in milk if sweet
1 teas vanilla
350 oven for 50 min.

Based on the time given for baking, I am guessing that this is a loaf cake, but I didn’t want to make a loaf cake and I used a few different ingredients. Here then, is the recipe as I baked it:

1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup butter, softened
2 eggs
¼ cup buttermilk
1 cup pureed bananas
2 cups cake flour
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream sugar and butter in stand mixer for 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift together the cake flour, salt and baking soda; set aside. Mix together the buttermilk, pureed bananas and vanilla. With mixer running, add dry ingredients alternately with fluids, beating until smooth after each addition. Pour into 9x13 baking pan sprayed with vegetable spray and bake at 350 degree oven for 28-32 minutes or until cake tests done.

Cake can be frosted with a thin coat of cream cheese frosting, a coconut frosting or just dusted with sifted powdered sugar.

I decided that I will experiment and bake it again, this time in a loaf pan for the specified time. I’m sure it will be good but different. This cake had a crunchy sugar bottom—not tough or burned, just a little layer like the top of Crème Brule upside down. Everyone loved it. Since bananas and strawberries have such an affinity for one another, and it is June, after all, I served this cake with sweetened, sliced strawberries and whipped cream. Delicious!

If you need any more reasons to eat and enjoy this old stand-by fruit, here is a little information I came across: bananas can be used to lose weight. Yes, they are somewhat caloric, as fruit goes (80 calories in a medium banana), but they supply potassium that helps balance the sodium that, in excess, causes water retention or “bloat.” Everyone knows that jeans zip up better without that problem. They also supply fiber, and vitamins A and B. They are the handiest snacks around, as they can be carried in their bacteria-proof wrapper and opened whenever wanted.