Banana-Caramel Birthday Cake

It’s not chocolate. That’s the unbelievable thing about this birthday cake. For years, every time I asked Kurt what kind of cake he’d like for his birthday, the only answer I heard was chocolate. Until this year. This year, he said he’d like something different. I was too confused to think, so I put some books in front of him and asked him to pick a cake. It took him longer than I thought it would. The lemon curd cake looked good, and so did the coconut cake. But, in the end, he chose this banana-caramel cake from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook.

The cake batter has lots of butter, some sour cream, and three mashed bananas. It makes a nicely sturdy cake that remains moist. Separating the layers, are three sliced bananas cooked in caramel. That alone would make a fantastic dessert, but it was even better as the glue between these layers. With six bananas in all, there’s almost a full serving of fruit in each slice of cake.

The frosting on the cake was mascarpone whipped cream which I’ll have to go on about for just a bit. First, it was so light and fluffy it seemed like it should be ok to go ahead and eat the entire bowl of it. The mascarpone, heavy cream, and confectioner’s sugar were mixed together all at once. I imagined it would be a little thicker and heavier like cream cheese frosting, but instead, the consistency was like puffy, creamy, light, pillowy stuff that’s really hard to stop eating. The second thing about it is that it’s lightly sweetened. It’s not tooth achingly sugary at all. That’s important because the frosted cake was then topped with caramel sauce. I already loved the frosting, and then it got some caramel. Dear, sweet, beautiful caramel. This cake was a very good choice.

It is a big, special cake, and it was splendid for a birthday celebration. You could simplify it by making one big layer, skipping the cooked bananas, and just frosting it without the caramel sauce. All the parts together, though, are so good. So Kurt’s another year older, and what am I doing with such an old man anyway? I think that every year until I catch up with him in a month and a half.