The Bibliotheca theme these last two months was Banana (For Scale), thanks to frillSquid’s beautiful mind, and I was hoping to see a lot of creative takes. My take is…making something with bananas in it.
A whosit whatsit?
This was one of three recipes I found under Bananas that piqued my interest in Betty Crocker’s New Picture Cook Book.
What kind of alien frosts the inside of a tube pan cake
The other two were Banana Jumbos, which are apparently cookies, and Hawaiian Banana Pie, which…I was very curious about (it has cinnamon??). But a quick poll of the Bay Area Kei staff server had this cake as the winner, and one of my test tasters is a favorer of cake, so… here we are.
He was never heard from again
I misread the caption on the lovelight chiffon page, and at first thought it was somehow different than a normal chiffon cake. But nope, they’re just specifying it’s a type of sponge. My cursory research indicates that “Lovelight [blank] Chiffon Cake” is just older usage from when they were first introduced to American home bakers in the mid-20th century. One of my stream regulars pointed out that many chiffon cake recipes nowadays have a lot more eggs (and possibly no milk), but I think this is just more reflective of The Passage of Time rather than a Defined Difference.
By the way, if you’re wondering about the whole “Picture” part of the New Picture Cook Book, basically in addition to a ton of illustration work throughout, there’s a lot of photographs in the beginning section instructing newbies (and honestly, people in general) on How To Do Things.
Ah, right, pineapple eyes, yep, totally knew about those
The recipe requests 1 cup of very ripe mashed bananas, and luckily when I decided to make this in the eleventh hour, there were conveniently 2 pretty ripe bananas already in my kitchen.
Yes, we have custom sticky notes
In fact, the only obstacle weirdly ended up being buttermilk.
I have questions about the egg substitutions…
I did wonder if my cake-favorer objected to its inclusion, on the basis that she once got very ill from spoiled buttermilk. How does one test for bad buttermilk, you say? Apparently not easily! But no, being that she doubles as my resident grocery shopper, she simply couldn’t find any at the store. A second trip to the ~healthy~ grocery store chain near us (that always has laughably bad produce) yielded a carton, however, as well as two more overripe bananas…which I guess tracks.
Guess I’m making pancakes later?
The Stress of Sponge
I’ve actually only made a sponge cake twice in recent memory. And it was twice, because I goofed one the first time, and then promptly made an even worse follow-up attempt. Granted, I was making a genoise sponge, which is technically different than a chiffon sponge…but still. Lot of moving parts.
Anyways, I noticed the instructions for this cake specifically ask for a ‘very stiff and glossy’ meringue, which was reassuring. It’s tempting to think “oh, my meringue wasn’t stiff enough” in these cases, but there are many occasions where soft peaks are your friend. This however, is apparently not one of them. I was also heartened by the inclusion of both baking powder and baking soda (interestingly just called soda, wonder when that usage flipped…). With a final recommendation to sift the cake flour before measuring (which I normally do anyways), I was at least confident I could check all the boxes for a successful cake…
Well, except one. The recipe has bake times for layer pans and a 13” by 9” sheet. (Weirdly, it calls the latter an ‘oblong’ pan instead of …a rectangle…more usage tidbits…) But when doing my cursory chiffon research, I found a recipe that used a tube pan (think the kind you use for angel food cake). And chiffon cakes do seem to be the “dust with powdered sugar” type. So you know what that means.
It’s Bundt time
Kelp, whenever she can justify using her Bundt pan
In my experience, you can usually successfully make any cake recipe in a Bundt pan, it just takes forever and a day to bake. Sponge cakes should follow the same principle…right?
Actually Making the Dang Thing
The directions have you make the meringue first (well, after pre-heating the oven and greasing and flouring the pan). I was worried about the timing given it’s a solid 95F/35C every day this week, so I did absolutely everything I could prep-wise before retrieving my eggs and special copper bowl from the fridge. (Except pre-heat the oven. I did that second-to-last, for obvious reasons.)
I got to soft peaks in a reasonable amount of time, but felt like I stopped making progress after that. I pondered my options and decided to set my magical copper bowl atop another bowl of ice water. This did seem to help me get to the glossy stage, but I wasn’t confident about very stiff.
I mean, shiny means you’re done, right
I decided to just take my chances and put it in the fridge while I put together the rest of the dry and wet ingredients, which should be the easy part, right? Well…
Normally, I’m used to being cautioned against overmixing cake batters. In other words, I see a lot of “until just combined”. The directions for this cake have you beat the batter twice at medium speed for a minute each, which to me at first signaled a similar stage of stirring. But I subsequently second-guessed my supposition after switching on my mixer – a minute is kind of a long time! But what if I need to beat air into the batter? Anyways. I decided to just…follow the directions as stated, more or less.
Afterwards, thought, I did make a decision to not follow the directions; I folded in the meringue, which luckily did stiffen up a bit in the fridge, and the optional chopped nuts at the same time, instead of separately as written. At least I was confident about that bit of combining.
Before and after. Nothing like greige sludge to get you excited for dessert.
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Welp. It came out! I had to let it cool for a good 45 minutes before I gently shook it loose from the pan, but you know. Just little summer things. Even before it came loose, I was a bit shocked by the color change, and then remembered: Kelp, you…basically made banana bread. You knew this.
Fun fact: banana bread is (correctly) listed under the Cake section of my breadmaker recipe book
Compared to banana bread, it does definitely feel a bit lighter. But the most noticeable quality is how moist it was, so much so I was worried about getting it out of the pan in one piece. Funnily enough, while Human Internet repeatedly assured me 1 cup of mashed banana = 3 overripe bananas, I was easily able to get a cup out of just 2. Are we Californians just blessed with big bananas? (Don’t make this weird.)
You can see why I was worried about it coming out cleanly
My other comment is I found it a tad sweet, but a) I’m comparing it to banana bread, and b) I think it’s really just the powdered sugar dusting. The same chiffon cake recipe that led to me use a Bundt pan also included a recipe for Chantilly cream that I decided to make for a topping. But Kelp, an experienced pastry chef reading this amateur hour blog interjects, Chantilly cream is basically just…whipped cream. Yeah, I knew right away that this was just called Chantilly to call it something. It’s whipped cream with some sour cream in it, I guess to serve the purpose that mascarpone would in the actual deal. I usually eat banana bread with cream cheese, so a whipped cream with a touch more acidity seemed appealing.
Obligatory banana for scale photo.
Also pictured: my sad attempt to make a generous dollop of hand whipped cream photogenic.
In conclusion…this didn’t end up being all that adventurous. Nor did I gain any sponge cake confidence. But I did fulfill the prompt requirements, and in the end, that’s all that matters.
kelp 