Banana cake

Ingredients:
¾ cup salted butter, softened to room temperature
2 cups + 2 tablespoons white sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups flour, very lightly spooned into measuring cups and leveled with a knife
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 ½ cups mashed banana
Instructions:
Grease a 9×13″ baking pan and set aside.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, mix banana and lemon juice. Set aside.
In another bowl, mix flour and baking soda.
In large bowl, mix butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla. Add ½ flour mixture, followed by ½ the buttermilk. Mix until just incorporated, then repeat with remaining flour mixture and buttermilk. Add bananas. Do not overmix. Pour into prepared 9×13 pan, and bake for 35-50 minutes (mine was perfect right at 38, but my oven bakes fast), or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely, then frost with cream cheese frosting or brown butter frosting (frosting recipe follows the cake recipe).

I found this on Our Best Bites.


Perfect Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
2 8-oz. packages cream cheese (light works fine, although it will yield a slightly softer frosting) at almost room temperature
1/2 cup salted butter at almost room temperature
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
Instructions:
Whip together the cream cheese, butter, and extract until light and fluffy. Add in the powdered sugar and whip until smooth and fully incorporated.  Refrigerate any leftovers (or anything you’ve frosted that doesn’t get eaten immediately).


Brown butterFROSTING
1/2 cup salted butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Heavy cream (to reach desired consistency)

 place 1/2 cup (that’s 1 stick) of salted butter into a small saucepan and heat over medium, stirring frequently, until it starts to bubble. When it begins to bubble, reduce the heat to low. Don’t go anywhere–things can go south quickly. Once the butter becomes very frothy, you’ll start to notice a caramel-like smell–that means the butter is browning. When the butter is brown (and before it burns), remove it from heat.
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1/4 cup heavy cream, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, the powdered sugar, and the melted butter and mix on high speed with a stand or electric mixer. Add additional heavy cream in order to reach the desired consistency.