It's bananas!

As promised, I'm sending you love in the form of banana cake. It hasn't even come out of the oven, and I can guarantee you that it won't be here by this time tomorrow. Delicious *and* healthful, this cake is loaded with protein and potassium, and made with zero fat. You couldn't ask for a more ideal breakfast cake.

Here's the recipe:

Covered in crud, this most beloved cookbook is so incredibly practical, like showing you what to do when you have nasty bananas like these:

Nasty, fermenting, lost all constitution - not that bananas are known for being tough and chewy, but eating these kinds of bananas would be a punishment for sure. (I should note that I rarely buy anything organic, but Wegman's sells them so cheap that it's just dumb to pay for the pesticides.)

These are the kinds of bananas you need for this cake. If your bananas don't make you question if they are trying to turn to alcohol, you need to either wait a day or so, or slice them up and quick freeze them for future banana smoothies.

Next step is to mash them up. At this point, you may be wondering how mashed you have to get your bananas, so I took a pic of them all mashed up:

It's a little chunky and very mushy. No need for perfection, as the lumps will melt into the batter as it's being cooked. To the mashed up bananas, I immediately added the buttermilk.

I make my own buttermilk at this point, and it's just so simple that there's no reason that you can't, either. There's really nothing like it for baking purposes (I don't drink this stuff), as it adds moisture and a dimension of culture that adds umph to the taste. Making your own pizza dough? Adding buttermilk instead of water, or even just substituting half of the water for buttermilk will feed the yeast and make for a very happy dough.

To make your own buttermilk: Buy a jug of it first. When almost done, save about a cup of it and add whatever milk you usually drink to fill up the container. Leave it on your counter for at least 24 hours, and maybe even more. Smell it when it's cultured enough - it should smell slightly sour but not overwhelmingly so. The jug itself might have expanded because the bacterial culture that you're growing in the buttermilk breathes out, just like you and me. The more it grows, the more gas there will be in the container. Put it back into the refrigerator (I store mine in the back where it's coldest and where no one will mistake it for something to use or throw out), and shake it before using. It should pour out like a thin and runny yogurt that's grossly frothy.

Next, I add my two eggs and only 1 1/3 cups of sugar. I'll dump in some vanilla because I can't help myself, and let it sit while I get the rest of the dry ingredients ready.

I measure out the 2 1/2 cups of flour into a measuring cup, and add the teaspoon of salt, and 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda and baking powder. Before adding to the liquid, I'll use my mini whisk to make sure there aren't any salt pockets in the finished product. This is where I'm often astounded about how much flour will compact itself as it sits around in the bag. This time around, my 2 1/2 cups of flour turned into 3 cups - something that could dry out the most well-intentioned cake. Leaving out the fat could also potentially dry out this cake.

This is why I always use 5 bananas instead of the 3 that the recipe calls for. Mind you, some people like their baked goods dry.

Dry = Flavorless 

Hey, some people like it that way, and I'm not here to judge. It's just that I think that you should at least know the science behind it. 

Dry means that your taste buds aren't going to react as much to the food, and in the case of baking, the cake won't taste as sweet. Dry also means that more of the fat that is normally used in the baking will dry up, too, leaving less taste. Again, some people like this - I'm just not one of them. It should also be noted that while it tastes less sweet and/or fatty, the full amount of sugar and fat is still in there. 

Anyway, here's what it looks like before baking:

This should give you an idea of how dense this batter is, as the walnuts don't just sink into the batter. Expect it to be about 2x as thick as a regular box cake batter.  

And here it is after baking at 350 F:

That's a sexy little piece of cake right there! Cut while it was hot, this little puppy is already devoured. As the cake cools down, it gets a little more dense and the top gets gooey. There's no real reason for frosting, but if there's no stopping you, it really should be a cream cheese frosting. 

Good luck! :)