TASTY TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2021 – NATIONAL BUNDT DAY
Can you believe I have used my Bundt pan for about 50 years now? It’s true! Since my mother taught me to make the food I prepare attractive (we really do eat first with our eyes, then our smell and taste buds) I bought this cast iron pan when I was a newlywed and have used it ever since. It’s heavy, cast iron and coated with a non-stick coating. There are full as well as mini-Bundt sized pans. The mini ones can be found individually or in a cupcake style pan that makes 6-8 cakes per pan. Now, if you do not have a BUNDT pan, do not worry. You can use any cupcake pan or an Angel Food Cake pan. Bundt pans have become very elaborate in design. They make your cakes beautiful. but regardless of what they are baked in, they really do taste equally as good and delicious!
This particular cake is actually a coffee cake. BUT I often make it like a banana coffee cake, a banana bread, or just a banana cake. I just knew I loved the flavor and the texture. It was easy to make, and so I just adapt it for what I’m hungry for. You must know that about me by now.
I often make it without the cinnamon and sugar topping, occasionally I add a glaze of powdered sugar and little milk. Or I usually just leave it without a topping. This banana cake is moist enough it doesn’t really need it. But, as with the special pan, sometimes if you’re making it for a special occasion, you’ll want to add a sweet topping of some kind – even sprinkle powdered sugar on top.
BANANA CINNAMON NUT BUNDT COFFEE CAKE
Ingredients
To make one large Bundt cake use the following ingredients – if you want to make a smaller one you may cut the amount of ingredients in half.
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
3-4 mashed ripe bananas (about 1 ½ cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 8-ounce container sour cream
¼ cup chopped pecans or walnuts, if desired
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 ½ cups sifted powdered sugar
1-1 ½ Tablespoons water or milk
Chopped nuts – same as inside if using – optional
Extra cinnamon and sugar
Instructions
- Beat the butter or margarine at medium speed of mixer if using, until creamy.
- Gradually add the 1 ½ c. sugar, beating well to combine.
- Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each egg.
- Stir in the mashed bananas and vanilla. Combine.
- Combine the flour and the next 3 ingredients (salt, baking powder and baking soda) and add to the butter mixture, alternately with the sour cream, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. It makes the batter smooth and combined. Beat at low speed if using the mixer until blended after each addition. Don’t beat hard and fast. It’ll toughen your cake.
- Combine the nuts, the 2 T. sugar and cinnamon.
- If using the large Bundt pan – use softened margarine or butter and your hands, coat the entire inside of the Bundt pan with the fat to prepare the pan for baking. Bundt pans that are non-stick really aren’t 100% non-stick, at least not that I’ve ever found. If you want the cake to come out of the pan nicely, be sure to coat yourself, in all the crevices. Then flour it lightly.
- Pour half of the batter into your 12-cup Bundt pan, sprinkle with the nut mixture and pour the remaining batter over the top of the nut mixture. Smooth gently. I like to tap the pan on the counter lightly to remove any air bubbles. If you don’t use the streusel filling, just pour batter. If you use smaller pans adjust accordingly. Remember, the cake will rise.
- Preheat your oven to 350 deg F. Bake cake 50 minutes for the large pan or until a long wooden pic or wire cake tester in center of the outside edges of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. Remove from pan, and cool on a wire rack. It might be tempting – it will smell out of this world! YUM!
- If using the glaze, combine the powdered sugar and water/milk, stirring until smooth, no lumps. Spoon over the warm cake and let it roll down the cake to make pretty and have some glaze on each slice. If you’ve used streusel with nuts, sprinkle some nuts on the glaze then sprinkle with the extra cinnamon and sugar and let cool completely.
TIPS: If you want it to be more like a banana bread, do not use the streusel filling or topping. You could even bake it in loaf pans as for a quick bread. Adapt it to your tastes or what you’d like to serve that day. The smaller pans or the pans with the hole in the center help the cake bake more evenly and completely.
I have found that it is delicious for a few days if it lasts that long. It also freezes well. ENJOY!
Bon Appetite’ With Love,
To download this recipe, click here.