Through the Facebook group for food bloggers called Food Bloggers Central, I met Annie Sageer from CiaoChowBambina.com. She’s a beautiful, Italian-American woman with the most gorgeous hair (said from someone with fine, thin, scraggly curly hair). Aside from growing beautiful hair, this clever woman cooks and bakes for the husband she adores and their three children who are off making their way in the world.
Annie might be empty nesting but she cooks like she’s cooking for the big Italian family. You’ll find recipes like rigatoni with greens, gorgonzola and walnuts, slow cooked rustic Italian chicken or acorn squash filled with sausage stuffing.
Through Food Bloggers Central, quite a few of us decided to do a type of blog hop where we all put our names on a list and everyone was to cook a recipe from the person above on the list. Ciaochowbambina was above me and that’s how I came to make this delicious banana cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting that Annie posted in June last year. I make a lot of banana bread but I can’t remember the last time I made a banana cake.
Annie made this cake for Father’s Day last year for her husband and son but I chose to make it just because it sounded delicious.
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 large egg white, room temperature
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 4 large ripe bananas
- ¼ cup milk
- 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ½ tablespoon vanilla
- 2 cups confectioners' sugar
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup walnuts, chopped
- Preheat oven to 375F (190C) degrees.
- Spray 8x8 (20cm) pan with cooking spray.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- Using an electric mixer, beat butter, oil and sugar.
- Beat in eggs and egg white, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- Mix in vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, mash bananas with milk. Set aside.
- Gradually mix in half the dry ingredients into butter mixture.
- Mix in bananas.
- Mix in remaining dry ingredients.
- Pour cake batter into prepared baking pan.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Cool cake in pan on wire rack.
- Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla.
- Reduce speed and gradually add confectioners' sugar and cinnamon.
- Spread frosting on cake.
- Sprinkle with walnuts.
If you’re a food blogger, click to join Food Bloggers Central. We discuss everything from what angle to shoot photos, how to approach a brand, which lenses to use, how to use light for better photos, how to promote your blog and much more. It’s a closed group so we can say anything we want.
