Thursday Recipe - Flamingo Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is my interpretation of a recipe in an old Southern Living Annual Recipe collection. The title grabbed me. Who could resist making Hummingbird Cake? I have no idea why it was called that but it sounded delicious and it was fairly easy to put together. And it's delicious. It takes time, but it's worth the wait.

It's full of tropical flavors and makes a wonderful spring dessert. I changed it up a bit, which is why I changed the name. The original called for pecans and lots of sugar. I don't usually like nuts in my baking, so I skipped them and added a pineapple-raspberry filling.

Flamingo Cake

3 - 4 very ripe bananas
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
3 eggs
1 20-oz can crushed pineapple, undrained and divided
2 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 T. cornstarch
1/3 c. raspberry jam or preserves
Cream Cheese Frosting
shredded coconut for garnish

Put bananas in the mixing bowl. Add sugar. Beat until bananas are smashed and sugar is mixed in. Add cinnamon, butter, baking soda, salt and vanilla. Mix together. Add eggs. Beat for 1 minute. Add half of the pineapple and the flours. Stir just until mixed.

Divide into baking pans - 3 8-inch round pans or 2 10-inch round pans (springform pans are nice for this because they make it easy to remove the cake). Bake at 350°F for 20-35 minutes, depending on pans. (My 10-inch pans needed 30 minutes.) Let cool in pans.

Meanwhile, place remaining pineapple in a small saucepan. Stir in cornstarch. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir one minute. Set aside to cool.

Once cake and filling are cool, make the frosting, then assemble the cake as follows:
Place one layer on a plate. Spread with jam and pineapple filling (use half at a time if you have three layers, otherwise spread it all on the first layer). Top with the second cake layer. Frost top and sides with cream cheese frosting. Sprinkle with coconut.

I'm not the best at decorating and I skipped the coconut on this one.

DO NOT EAT YET. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least six hours. This lets the cake flavors blend and the frosting and filling set.

Remove from refrigerator and serve chilled. Garnish with strawberries, raspberries, coconut, fresh pineapple, or ice cream. Be sure to refrigerate any leftovers.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 c. butter, softened
1 8-oz package regular cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 t. almond flavoring
3 T. milk
2 - 3 c. powdered sugar

Cream butter and cream cheese until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add vanilla, almond flavoring, and milk a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Mixture should be very soft and creamy. Add powdered sugar until mixture is of a spreading consistency. Beat for another 5 minutes until very fluffy. It will be a very soft frosting.

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.