I own a lot of cookbooks, and one way I try to keep my cookbook budget until control is to buy used books when I can. I've never had a bad experience buying used cookbooks, save one. A few years ago I purchased a used copy of Back in the Day Bakery Made with Love by Cheryl and Griffith Day. After it arrived it looked like it was in pristine condition and I didn't think anything was amiss. Until one day when I was browsing through the index, saw a listing for a banana chiffon cake, and flipped to the referenced pages in the cookbook. There was nothing there. Literally nothing. As I looked closely, I realized that someone had carefully cut out the few pages of the cookbook containing the recipe. To say I was miffed is an understatement.
[This where I have to admit that I have in fact twice ripped out a few pages from a cooking magazine in a waiting room -- once at the hair salon and once at the car dealership -- so I won't pretend that I always take the moral high road. While I'm not proud of what I did, I would argue that there is a distinction between tearing a few pages out of a magazine (which I tend to think of as something that is disposable) that's been put out for public consumption, and surgically excising pages from a hardcover book (an item with permanence) and sending it into the hands of an unsuspecting secondhand buyer.]
Last month when I heard that Powell's Books in Oregon was struggling to survive during the pandemic, I placed an order for a bunch of cookbooks that I don't need, including a second used copy of Back in the Day Bakery Made with Love. The first thing I did after it arrived was look for the banana chiffon cake recipe. The pages were there, so I made the recipe as soon as I had some extra-ripe bananas available.
To make the cake batter, you put all of the dry ingredients (cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) into a bowl; add the liquid ingredients (buttermilk, oil, vanilla, mashed bananas, and egg yolks) in two parts; and fold in egg whites that have been beat with cream of tartar and sugar to stiff peaks. You pour the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan to bake.
After the cake is cooled, you spread on a frosting that is made by mixing room temperature cream cheese, softened butter, vanilla, mashed banana that has been cooked until it liquefies, and powdered sugar. I tasted the frosting and thought it was quite sweet, so I added a bit pinch of salt. The frosting was soft and slightly droopy (but not runny).
I liked this banana cake, but I thought it was too sweet, especially the frosting; I think the frosting would have been better with more cream cheese to add some more tang and give it a thicker texture. And while I like the novelty of having bananas in the frosting, I don't think they actually added that much flavor-wise. A traditional cream cheese frosting would do just fine here. I'm used to chiffon cake having a very light texture, but perhaps because of the inclusion of the mashed bananas in the batter, this had the texture of regular oil cake. I couldn't help comparing it to the Best Banana Cake from Sally's Baking Addiction, which I think is better (both with regard to the cake and the frosting).
However, I've been dropping off baked goods regularly with my friends Jim and Colleen during the pandemic, and this is the dessert that Jim raved about most. He even liked it better than Shauna Sever's Chocolate Bumpy Cake, which I thought was one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever made. So this cake has its devoted fans!
Recipe: "Banana Chiffon Cake with Banana-Cream Cheese Frosting from Back in the Day Bakery Made with Love by Cheryl Day and Griffith Day,
Previous Post: "Name Checks Out: Best Banana Cake," May 30, 2018.
[This where I have to admit that I have in fact twice ripped out a few pages from a cooking magazine in a waiting room -- once at the hair salon and once at the car dealership -- so I won't pretend that I always take the moral high road. While I'm not proud of what I did, I would argue that there is a distinction between tearing a few pages out of a magazine (which I tend to think of as something that is disposable) that's been put out for public consumption, and surgically excising pages from a hardcover book (an item with permanence) and sending it into the hands of an unsuspecting secondhand buyer.]
Last month when I heard that Powell's Books in Oregon was struggling to survive during the pandemic, I placed an order for a bunch of cookbooks that I don't need, including a second used copy of Back in the Day Bakery Made with Love. The first thing I did after it arrived was look for the banana chiffon cake recipe. The pages were there, so I made the recipe as soon as I had some extra-ripe bananas available.
To make the cake batter, you put all of the dry ingredients (cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) into a bowl; add the liquid ingredients (buttermilk, oil, vanilla, mashed bananas, and egg yolks) in two parts; and fold in egg whites that have been beat with cream of tartar and sugar to stiff peaks. You pour the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan to bake.
I liked this banana cake, but I thought it was too sweet, especially the frosting; I think the frosting would have been better with more cream cheese to add some more tang and give it a thicker texture. And while I like the novelty of having bananas in the frosting, I don't think they actually added that much flavor-wise. A traditional cream cheese frosting would do just fine here. I'm used to chiffon cake having a very light texture, but perhaps because of the inclusion of the mashed bananas in the batter, this had the texture of regular oil cake. I couldn't help comparing it to the Best Banana Cake from Sally's Baking Addiction, which I think is better (both with regard to the cake and the frosting).
However, I've been dropping off baked goods regularly with my friends Jim and Colleen during the pandemic, and this is the dessert that Jim raved about most. He even liked it better than Shauna Sever's Chocolate Bumpy Cake, which I thought was one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever made. So this cake has its devoted fans!
Recipe: "Banana Chiffon Cake with Banana-Cream Cheese Frosting from Back in the Day Bakery Made with Love by Cheryl Day and Griffith Day,
Previous Post: "Name Checks Out: Best Banana Cake," May 30, 2018.
Comments