Yellow cake mix gets a boost of banana, brown sugar and cinnamon, and is topped with a quick caramel icing and chopped pecans.
Easy Banana Cake with Quick Caramel Icing
This cake came about when I saw a from scratch, two layer banana cake that was just gorgeous and looked so darned good with a yummy butter and cream cheese icing and dotted with chunks of walnuts. I even bought the bananas with the intent of making it, but for some reason every time I thought about making it, I would look at the recipe and put it off. It seemed a bit daunting to me and I'm not a great layer cake baker.Well, as bananas do, they were soon calling to be used, and knowing that I did have a couple of cake mixes in the pantry, I pulled out my trusty copy of the The Cake Mix Doctor {affil link} and sure enough, there lay a recipe that I could shortcut! Yay!
I'll get around to a homemade banana cake when I'm in the mood, but for now this worked well and was excellent. I really love the caramel icing - very similar to my peanut butter icing in method, this would be a great frosting to liven up several kinds of different cakes.
Here's how to make it.
 |
Recipe: Easy Banana Cake with Caramel Icing
©From the Kitchen of Deep South Dish
Prep time: 10 min |Cook time: 55 min | Yield: About 12 servings
Ingredients
Instructions
- 1 package yellow cake mix
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3 ripe bananas, mashed
- 1 cup of water
- 1/2 cup of canola oil
- 3 large eggs
- Quick Caramel Icing (see below)
- 1 cup of chopped pecans
Spray a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with Baker's Joy non-stick spray. In the bowl of your mixer, add the cake mix, brown sugar and cinnamon and whisk to break up clumps.
In a separate bowl, combine the bananas, water, oil and eggs until mixed together. Add to the dry ingredients. Beat on low for about 1 minute, stop scrape down the sides, and beat another 2 minutes on medium speed. Pour into the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, reduce heat to 325 degrees and bake another 25 to 30 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Place on a wire rack to cool in the pan. Pour icing over the still warm cake and sprinkle the pecans on top while the icing is still warm. Allow the cake to set for at least an hour to fully cool.
Quick Caramel Icing
From the Kitchen of Deep South Dish
1 stick of pure unsalted butter
1 cup of packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup of half and half
2 cups of sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the butter and brown sugar and cook over a slightly higher than medium fire, until mixture begins to boil. This will take anywhere from 2 to 4 minutes depending on your stove. Once it begins to boil, slowly whisk in the half and half until well blended. Bring back just to a boil, turn the burner to low, remove the saucepan from the heat, add the powdered sugar and vanilla and blend. Return the saucepan to the burner and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth. Icing will get stiff quickly so you'll need to immediately pour over cake and allow it to set.
Variation: Make this an applesauce cake by replacing the bananas with 1 cup of applesauce. Thanks Lori!
Adapted from The Cake Mix Doctor {affil link}
Source: http://deepsouthdish.com
Requires Adobe Reader - download it free!
©Deep South Dish
☛ Are you on Facebook? If you haven't already, come and join the party! We have a lot of fun & there's always room for one more at the table.
Homemade Butter Cake with Pineapple Filling
Fresh Apple Cake
Sour Cream Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
Images and Full Post Content including Recipe ©Deep South Dish. Pinning and sharing links is welcomed and encouraged, but please do not repost or republish elsewhere such as other blogs, websites, or forums without explicit prior permission. All rights reserved.
Material Disclosure: Unless otherwise noted, you should assume that post links to the providers of goods and services mentioned, establish an affiliate relationship and/or other material connection and that I may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You are never under any obligation to purchase anything when using my recipes and you should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.
.