Brothers, Part II

Then there’s Steven.  He’s the one who got married earlier this year.  Steven’s the younger older brother.  (Yep, I’m the baby girl.)

Steven knows better than to eat a raw plantain… (lolz).  But he has his… quirks…  Tina, his wife/my sister(-in-law), can attest.  Using a fork to scrape peanut butter out of the jar, for example.  No one knows why.  Pretty sure Steven doesn’t know either.  It’s just always been like that.  Grab a banana.  Peel it.  Break it in half.  Scrape pb out of the jar with a fork and onto the banana.  Chomp, chew, repeat process.

Wherever Steven lives, there are fork tracks in the peanut butter.

So for his birthday this year, I thought to make him a cake comprising of a few of his mindless addictions…

A banana cake, made with vanilla bean paste to give it that wonderful, ethereal vanilla flavor.

Marshmallow frosting… because Steven loves sweets that are light and fluffy.

(Tina’s light, but not fluffy.  I would know, she’s sat on me before…  Hi Tina!)

And between each layer, peanut butter honey icing, sliced bananas,

and some of that marshmallow frosting.

I put a little jar of peanut butter on top.  And made sure it had fork tracks in it ;)

Oh.  And a marzipan fork.

Then there was a little party at Tina’s brother’s house.

The family puppies were there…

Steven swears Oliver likes being smothered like this.

Then there’s Goldie, the lighter, more sprightly counterpart to Oliver.

Okay, so they’re not puppies, chronologically.  But y’know.

Steven got spoiled.  All his favorite desserts.

And a My Little Pony card from me :D

Banana Fluffernutter Cake

Ingredients:

for cake (adapted from The Post Punk Kitchen)-

3 overly ripe bananas

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated shortening, margarine, or butter (at room temperature)

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste, or 1-2 tsp vanilla extract (depending on how much vanilla flavor you want)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup milk (almond, soy, dairy, whatever), mixed with 1 teaspoon white or apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

for the marshmallow frosting-

the recipe for this can be found here, since I’m lazy, and she presents it in such a special manner :)

for the peanut butter icing-

this is so easy, I’ll tell you after the cake.

1)  Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Grease 2 6-inch round pans.  You can also use a single 8 or 9 inch round pan, a 8×8 square pan or 8×4 inch loaf pan.  Depends on how you’re serving this, since it doesn’t have to be assembled exactly as I did.

2)In a large bowl, with your mixer, beat up the bananas, getting them as smooth as you can.  Add in the sugar and shortening, and beat, again, until as smooth as you can get it.

3) Mix in your salt, vanilla, and the soured milk.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda, and fold into the banana mixture with a rubber spatula.

4) Scrape the batter into your pan(s). Bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Using two smaller pans may result in faster baking time, so just keep an eye on your baby.

The peanut butter icing is kind of an ad-lib.  I just threw together some peanut butter, honey, powdered sugar, and non-hydrogenated shortening.  If you have a favorite peanut butter icing or frosting recipe, go for it.  For me, the point was to be able to pipe the decoration around the cake.  If you’re not worried about that, just some plain peanut butter and honey or maple syrup will do for the filling.

Once the cake is cooled, slice the tops and edges to flatten and smooth out the layers.  I sliced each cake into two, so as to have four layers.  That’s up to you.  You can just have two layers.  Between layers, spread some peanut butter icing/filling.  Top with thinly sliced banana, and make a thick ring around the edges with marshmallow frosting.  Frost the entire cake in marshmallow frosting.  Decorate as desired.  I don’t recommend the miniature jar of forked up peanut butter on top unless you also have a friend or family member who eats their peanut butter with a fork…

Right, Goldie?

Aaaw.  Pooped.