Banana Cake

Before we get into the swing of Christmas baking, I have decided to post a recipe that is iconic in our family. If a future anthropologist were to describe our defining characteristics, her report would read something like... "a family of large-headed people who liked to bake their over-ripe fruit in a cake". Anyway, here it is.

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/4 cups of granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup of butter at room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mashed bananas
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 tablespoons of milk
• 1 and 3/4 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Methods: 
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the butter and sugar together and then add all the other ingredients and mix until combined. (I suppose that you really should mix the dry ingredients together and add them in increments). Pour batter into a buttered, parchment paper-lined cake pan and bake until a toothpick stuck in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Depending on the size of your cake pan/depth of the cake, this will take in the range of 30-40 minutes. Cool and ice with whatever type of icing you prefer. We use a brown sugar icing but chocolate is nice as well.

Brown Sugar Icing:
Melt in a pot on the stove about 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of brown sugar, plus 1/4 cup of corn syrup or maple syrup. Then stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 cup of milk. Remove from the heat. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla, then beat in 2-3 cups of icing sugar. While the icing is still warm , pour over the cooled cake.