This recipe hails from the loveliest, rusted old recipe tin that I acquired from an estate sale from someone in the area. She was simply selling a lot of her cookbooks and recipes that she was not going to use any longer, and I truly gasped at the treasure trove I was able to find. SO, this one goes out to Nelda, whoever she might be - my teacher and mentor from afar as I learn to bake her many cake recipes. This felt like a true classic bake - something straight out of the 1950s so aka my personal favorites... I'm forever stuck in the wrong decade :)
Here's what ya need:
3 9-inch cake pans
3 cups self-rising flour
2 cups sugar
dash of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup corn oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 8 oz cane crushed pineapple (undrained)
1 cup small pecan pieces (*I used walnuts because someone hasn't learned to prep yet!)
2 cups chopped bananas (not mashed)
And for the cream cheese icing:
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
2 sticks butter, softened
1 16 oz box powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Yellow food gel coloring for decorating if desired
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs and oil, stirring until all ingredients are moistened. Do not beat. It will look a little dry and that is just dandy. Just keep at it. I just used good ol' fashioned elbow grease with a spatula for this and it turned out a-ok!
Stir in the vanilla extract, pineapple, pecans, and bananas and voila - batter! Spoon the batter into three well-greased 9 inch cake pans. I have become fond of weighing out each pan on a food scale to see how much is in each, since I can't eye it very well just yet. Mine all turned out to be around 980-ish grams if that is helpful.
Bake for 30 minutes and cool on wire rack in pan for ~15 minutes. Cut around the edge of the sides first if you leave it sitting for awhile longer since it may stick to the sides of the pan. Remove the cake from the pans and frost with the cream cheese frosting - which you basically just combine all the ingredients at once and beat into oblivion... JKJK, until "light and fluffy." Is it just me or is that in every single baking recipe?!
This was my first time using my cake spinner turntable thingy and I had so much fun with it. It truly did make the icing part much easier. I am still learning the art of clean edges on top after using a bench scraper, but I was also kind of digging the rustic and unfinished look this cake had. As for the little floral details, I simply added yellow food color paste (Wilton's Golden Yellow) to my leftover cream cheese icing and put in a piping bag with the Wilton Leaf Tip #66. For the middle of the flower, I actually had some leftover black royal icing lying around from some decorated cookies I did this weekend, so there ya have it! I also sprinkled on some white sugar nonpareils for the heck of it - because why not?! Very haphazard choices with the decorating - I just worked with what I had lying around and I think it turned out alright :) Enjoy!
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