Banana Cream Cake

This cake came out wonderful. It's a lot like a banana bread cake with a cream cheese pecan frosting. Read more for the recipe!

This recipe came from Indulge, 100 Perfect Desserts from Claire Clark of The French Laundry. This book is quite amazing. The recipes are great, but the photos are even better. Mmmm.

Ingredients:

6oz plain flour sifted

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

6oz dark brown sugar

2 medium eggs

4 Tbsp vegetable oil

6oz ripe banana, mashed

1 3/4oz pecans, chopped

Frosting:

2 1/4oz cream cheese

6 3/4oz confectioners sugar

4 1/2oz unsalted butter, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

1 3/4oz pecans, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 325° F. Grease a round 8 in springform cake tin or 10-12 muffin tins.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder together. Place the sugar, eggs and oil in a large bowl and whisk with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 4 minutes, until pale and fluffy. And the sifted flour mixture and the banans and mix on a low speed for 30 seconds. Stir in the pecan nuts. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin or muffin tins and bake for about 40 minutes for a large cake, 20 minutes for muffins, until the top springs back when pressed gently and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Leave in the tin to cool completely before frosting. 

3. For the frosting, combine all the ingredients except the pecan nuts in a bowl and beat until pale and fluffy. Spread the frosting over the cake with a palette knife and sprinkle with the chopped pecans. Finally, dust with confectioners sugar.