The Best Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

During my free time these days, I flip through Flipkart. And invariably, I end up ordering a book most of the time. My inclination is more towards cookbooks these days. After the 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer, I fell in love with Mix & Bake by Belinda Jaffery. The instant the book arrived, I was in awe of the recipes. Banana Bread with Cream Cheese Frosting is the first recipe I've attempted from this book.

I strictly followed the directions in the book and the end result was a delicious, divine, moist, sweet banana flavoured cake.

If you feel the Cream Cheese Frosting is going to be a little heavy for you, alternatively you can skip it. Instead just follow the process to make the Banana Cake and sprinkle some icing sugar on top (this is again optional). By the way, another interesting way to use the Cream Cheese Frosting is to throw in some chopped fruits into it, mix well, chill and serve! I bet kids will relish it.

To make the cake:
Grease and flour a cake mould.Mix together - flour, baking powder, salt and bicarbonate of soda. Keep aside.Mash the ripe bananas to get 1 cup of banana pulp. Purée until it's smooth. Add sugar and eggs and mix together with a hand mixer or in a food processor, until the mixture is thick and creamy.Now add buttermilk and vanilla essence and mix well.Add the reserved flour mixture with a spatula. Do not overdo this step, otherwise the cake will turn out tough.Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Take out the cake from the oven and cool let it cool.To make the icing:
Prepare this while the cake is cooling. Beat cream cheese and unsalted butter together with a hand mixer or in a food processor, ultil they're well mixed.Add the icing sugar and vanilla essence and mix well until smooth.Chill it for about 15 minutes to firm it up.To finish the cake:
After cooling the cake completely, place it on a serving plate and horizontally cut through the cake to get two equal layers.Spread some icing on the bottom layer. Place the other layer on top of it. Spread a thick layer of icing all over the top and sides of the cake and smooth it as best as you can.Serve the cake straight away or refrigerate it. Though I prefered refrigerating first and then serving it.

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