Birthday Banana Cake with Coffee Chocolate Frosting

Photos: (Top) The birthday queen and her royal court celebrate turning 22! (Bottom) Though the cake doesn't look glamorous, it contains the yummy flavor combo of bananas, pecans, chocolate and coffee!
My friend Katherine turned 22 this past Wednesday and her birthday reminded me of the simple pleasure of baking for someone else. I love traditions (my mom can be blamed for that!) and so when birthdays roll around, I find cake, candles and an out-of-tune round of "Happy Birthday To You" as necessities. What I love is to try to find a cake that "matches" the person who we're celebrating, in a fun blend of psychoanalysis and sweets. I found this recipe for Banana Cake with Coffee Buttercream saved in my archives and instantly wanted to make it for Katherine. She loves coffee, introduced me to the joys of a French Press, and her affinity for caffeine matches her hectic full lifestyle. This particular recipe is from the NYC restaurant/bakery Serendipity 3 made famous by the John Cusac/Kate Beckinsale movie and apparently is one of the owner's favs. I stuck to the cake recipe exactly, and ended up with batter for only 1 9-in. round cake, much less than the recipe says it will produce. The cake tastes like sweet banana bread, and I highly recommend keeping the pecans since they contribute to a nice contrast of texture. I swapped a quicker recipe for the coffee frosting recipe in place of the original since I was pressed for time. Let me know if you're interested in the original recipe, and I can send it to you. This frosting was a little thin, but it hardened well and had a distinct coffee flavor. It only made enough to cover the top, so if you want to frost the sides as well, you may want to double it.

Recipe: Banana Cake with Coffee Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients (for the cake):
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups cake flour (I used all-purpose flour since that's what I had on hand)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (from about 2 medium ones)
2 eggs
Scant 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup coarsely chopped shelled unsalted pecans

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Use 1 tbsp. of the butter to grease cake pans (the original recipe calls for 3 8-inch pans, mine only made 1 9-inch cake, so perhaps leave this step until after mixing the batter, so that you can judge just how many cake pans you will need) line with parchment paper, and set aside. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together into a medium bowl and set aside. Beat remaining 7 tbsp. butter and sugar togethr in large mixing bowl with electric mixer on high until fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add bananas and beat on medium speed until well combined. Add eggs and buttermilk and beat until fully incorporated. Add flour mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon until just incorporated, then fold in pecans. Divide batter equally between prepared pans, smoothing tops with a spatula. Bake until cakes are golen brown and spring back when touched, 10-15 minutes. Cool cakes in their pans for 5 minutes on a wire rack, then remove them from pans and peel off parchment, and allow cakes to cool completely on the rack.
Recipe from Saveur Magazine

Ingredients (for frosting):
2 tbsp. butter
1 c. confectioners' (powdered) sugar
1 tbsp. strong hot coffee
1 tsp. dry cocoa
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Procedure:
Cream butter and sugar; add remaining ingredients (I added about another tbsp of coffee to increase the intensity of flavor).
Recipe from cooks.com

Austen Dinners: Pride and Prejudice

From top to bottom: Parmesan Cheese Toasts with Green Onion, playing with wontons, and a plateful of Chile Pea Puffs.
I am taking a class on Jane Austen this quarter, and my friend with whom I am taking it suggested early on in the course that we should attempt to watch the movie adaptation of each novel after we finish it. Her idea soon turned into a weekly gathering of friends to cook dinner together and enjoy the exploits of Austen's worlds. Last week was our Pride and Prejudice night, with the 6-hour long BBC television special winning out over the latest Keira Knightley version. As we settled in for a long night, we feasted on the hodgepodge of dishes made potluck style. My friend Katherine started us off with Parmesan Cheese Toasts with Green Onions (recipe at bottom) which were the perfect finger food to fuel the rest of us while we cooked. I really liked the crisp green onions in this recipe, which I think elevates an otherwise ordinary cheesy toast to a gourmet appetizer. I made the Chile Pea Puffs recently featured on 101cookbooks.com. The puffs are a fun dish to make in a group since each can play with folding and wrapping techniques, but I found the filling less hearty and flavorful than I anticipated, and taking into account the labor involved, I wouldn't highly recommend the recipe without some adjustments. Finally, my friends Lindsay and Lauren crowned the meal with homemade chocolate chip cookies, the ultimate comfort food luxury. We were left to inevitably fall for Colin Firth/Mr. Darcy with happy tummies. 

Parmesan Cheese Toasts with Green Onion (in Katherine's words):

"Its just equal parts mayo and parmesan cheese and green onion. I think I put more parmesan than the other stuff though. And then broil them till the top of the cheese just begins to brown. Also, if you cut up the baguette a few hours or a day before its good, because it just gets a little drier and toastier when you cook it (we didn't have time to do that, but its good either way)."

Ultimate Comfort Food

Above: Pomí imported sauce, shredded mozzarella and pre-made polenta role, and the bubbly magic that happens when you combine them all!

"Comfort food" is a very relative term, but to me, a large bowl of spaghetti marinara and a side of cheesy grits would both be filed away under this category. When Gourmet.com featured this recipe for Polenta Pie with Cheese and Tomato Sauce, I was at first hooked by its claim to be a quick one-dish vegetarian weeknight dinner, and it was only after I dug into the melting mozzarella set atop steaming polenta and fresh tomato sauce that I recognized both of my comfort foods united into this single dish. While winter lingers in these colder spring days, I recommend this dish as a final hearty hurrah before summer brings its neglection of the oven and turn to outdoor cooking.


Polenta Pie with Cheese and Tomato Sauce
Serves4 to 6

* Active time:10 min
* Start to finish:30 min

* 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 (16- to 18-oz) ready-made plain polenta roll (plastic-wrapped)
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
* 1 (25- to 26-oz) jar chunky tomato sauce
* 1/4 lb mozzarella, coarsely shredded (1 cup)
* 2 tablespoons finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 450°F. Oil a 9-inch pie plate or a 4-cup gratin dish with 1 teaspoon oil.

Cut polenta roll crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices and line pie plate with half of slices, overlapping slices slightly to completely cover bottom of pie plate. Stir 1 tablespoon basil into 1 1/2 cups pasta sauce and spread over polenta, then sprinkle with half of mozzarella. Top with remaining half of polenta slices, then sprinkle with Parmigiano-Reggiano and remaining half of mozzarella.

Bake until bubbling and golden, about 20 minutes. While pie bakes, heat remaining pasta sauce, basil, and oil in a small saucepan, stirring occasionally, until heated through. Let pie stand 5 minutes to firm up and cool, then serve with extra sauce on the side.

From Gourmet.com http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2006/06/polenta-pie

A note on the ingredients: I had to search a little bit for the polenta roll and ultimately found it in the dry pasta section. Also, I picked up a pre-made tomato sauce, and while I prefer homemade, I think Pomí tomato sauces taste very fresh for pre-made, and they're not too much more expensive than the average bottle.