Thursday Recipe - Tropical Cake

Happy Valentine's Day! It's my wedding anniversary. That makes 27 years, sweetheart. Here's to a lot more.

I've been craving cake lately. No idea why. I've never been much of a cake person. But the last few weeks, cake is the only thing I really crave. Because of my diet, I can't do chocolate cake and I can't do cake mixes and I'm not supposed to have much sugar, so I've been digging through my recipe book collection (30+ cookbooks and counting) looking for inspiration. I found an interesting banana cake recipe and modified it, because I can't follow a recipe the way it's written to save my life.

The cake is sweet, but not too sweet. It tastes better the next day.

Tropical Cake

 1/3 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla extract
1 t. coconut extract
1 2/3 c. sifted flour
1/2 c. milk

Topping:
1/2 c. shredded coconut
1 c. sliced or slivered almonds
1/2 c. brown sugar

Heat oven to 350°. Grease a 9x13 cake pan and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until soft and fluffy looking. Add eggs and bananas. Cream until bananas are mashed completely. Scrape sides. Add baking powder, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, and coconut extract. Beat on high speed for 1 - 2 minutes, until very fluffy. Add flour and milk. Mix on low speed just until blended. Pour batter into cake pan.

Mix together topping ingredients and sprinkle over unbaked cake.

Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes, until cake tests done. (Poke it with a toothpick. It should come out clean. You can also jiggle the pan. If it still wiggles a lot in the middle, it isn't done yet. Touching it with your finger doesn't work too well with this recipe. It's a dense, moist cake. Plus, the topping gets in the way. Don't burn your fingers on the sugar!)

Serve warm or cold. It's delicious either way.