Newly Discovered Family Recipes {Recipe: Roslyn's Banana Bread Cake}

 

I recently discovered my mother-in-law's recipe file and decided to try a few recipes from it. She already made me a lovely hand written and illustrated family cook book of her favorite recipes (I've shared a few recipes from this here), so I don't know how much she used the recipes in the file. 

The first one I thought I'd try is this "banana bread cake". My husband thinks that Roslyn was a neighbor of theirs. The ingredients are similar to a cake batter, but baked in a loaf pan.

One of the issues with trying to recreate recipes from old recipe files is the recipes were always copied carefully. This goes for my mother's and my mother-in-law's hand written recipes. So, I sometimes I have to guess what they meant. For this recipe, I had to guess the amount of baking powder and size of loaf pan. There is "tsp", then ditto marks for the 2 measurements above the baking powder, and "4 tablespoons" for the sour cream measure after it. The baking powder just has a "1 t" next to it.  Another banana bread recipe in the file that is similar has 2 teaspoons of baking powder, so a tablespoon seems a reasonable guess. I used the 1.5 quart Pyrex loaf pan I inherited from my mother that is, according to my husband, the same type loaf pan my mother-in-law had. 

Roslyn's Banana Bread Cake

This is a very sweet, tender cake like banana bread. 

1/2 cup shortening*

1 cup sugar (original recipe stated "+one spoonful sugar", but I left out-one cup is plenty of sugar.)

2 eggs

1-1/2 cup cake flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 cup sour cream

1 cup mashed bananas (about 2-3 ripe bananas, depending on size)

1 teaspoon vanilla

 

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease an 1.5 quart loaf pan; set aside. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder into a medium mixing bowl; set aside. In another medium mixing bowl, cream together shortening, sugar, and eggs. until light yellow. Add sour cream, bananas, and vanilla to egg mixture, and beat until well combined. Add flour mixture and, with mixer set on low, mix until just combined-being careful not to over mix. 

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 45-60 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for about 10-15 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. 

*I can never use shortening up before it goes bad to justify buying it, so I used vegetable oil as a substitute.

Enjoy!