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