There are many things about this recipe that fall under the category of “I used to. . . but now. . .” which makes it even more exciting than the name might indicate. Two friends of mine decided to host a “Day of Awesomeness” in which each attendee would teach the rest of the attendees. . . something. Anything really. Something that we were good at, passionate about, etc. One friend of ours taught us how to draw a portrait that didn’t look like an alien (something I have never successfully been able to do prior to this), we played Improv games (which was the best thing ever, and extra fun ever since I saw this video), and we had a wine-tasting in which we were introduced to the difference between oaked and un-oaked chardonnay (especially exciting since I never knew there was such a thing). So many new skills. Naturally, I taught my friends how to make frosting, a special frosting that I used to think of as something mysterious and complex. 
I used to be scared of buying too many bananas because I have (a) a strong dislike of eating bananas that have more than a few brown spots (flashbacks from my mom saying, “It’s not that bad” and eating something that fruit flies would have happily spent abnormally long and healthy lives in) and (b) tremendous guilt about wasting food. However, I then had a culinary epiphany in which I realized that bananas never really go bad. If you, like me, are unjustifiably picky about the bruise level on your fruit, you will be happy to know that bananas can have a wildly successful second life as a baking fruit. In fact, I would actually argue that bananas that are past their raw eating prime are infinitely better for baking. Juicier, more concentrated flavor, and altogether easier to squash.
After far too many down and out battles with fruit flies, which simultaneously drive me crazy, gross me out, and make me unwilling to eat any of the fruit in my kitchen, I started pre-empting the rotten fruit problem by freezing bananas I wasn’t going to eat (I also used to think this was a no-no. Wrong. GREAT idea). Let’s be honest: I know when I’m not going to eat them. I look at them and think “Gross.” I don’t eat things that I think are gross (which includes store-bought cookies most of the time). Rather than allowing myself to think that over the course of multiple consecutive days, I now just put them in the freezer as soon as that point comes. Or as soon as I’m thinking, “Oh darn, I just bought eight bananas and I’m leaving town.” As previously stated, I don’t worry about doing that anymore because they will still be good for baking.
The best part is that when you taking them out of the freezer and let them unthaw, they are so deliciously juicy, and just slither right out their peels. (I severely grossed a former roommate out once when she saw me making banana bread with bananas like that. She declared it could not possibly be healthy, and I retaliated that she should just wait until she tasted the banana bread that would have the richest banana flavor she had ever tasted). I sometimes even put them in the freezer before they’ve reached the “gross” stage when I’ve decided I want to make banana-something just so I can get that concentrated flavor.
The central component of this recipe comes from the Joy of Cooking. I confess that the movie Julie and Julia in no way diminished my love of this book, despite it’s withering commentary. First, it has a banana cake recipe, which is so delicious and fluffy that I would literally eat it every day if I could. Second, it has such delightful skeleton recipes for so many different base foods that even if I don’t make the exact recipe, I am able to construct a recipe around the guidelines given. Third, I like the way the recipes are laid out with the instructions interspersed with the ingredients so I don’t accidentally add all of the sugar when I was only supposed to add half of it. (I have maintained the original structure below so you too can enjoy that. Or decide you prefer the traditional method. The only problem is that it makes marshalling all of your ingredients ahead of time a tad challenging as you hunt through the recipe for each component).
Banana Cake (from the Joy of Cooking):
Says the recipe: “Do try this, if you like a banana flavor”. (I’d say try it even if you’re on the fence)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 9-inch round pans. The original recipe says “greased”, but I wrote myself a very assertive note in the margin that says “grease not enough!” I suspect because I once ripped the entire bottom layer of the cake layers trying to get them out of a greased pan. I recommend also using parchment paper (and greasing that as well) or dusting the grease with flour. Otherwise you may well have a horribly depressing experience in which your cake layer becomes chunks o’ cake on your cooling rack.
Have all ingredients at about 75 degrees (or whatever room temperature is for you these days.) It is always wonderful and highly effective if you can actually do this, but not really the end of the world if you forget to plan that far ahead and just yank things out of the refrigerator.
Sift before measuring:
2 ¼ cups cake flour*
Resift with:
½ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon salt
Sift (separately):
1 ½ cups sugar
Cream:
½ cup butter
Add the sifted sugar gradually. Cream until very light. Beat in, one at a time:
2 eggs
Prepare:
1 cup lightly mashed ripe bananas
Add:
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ yogurt or buttermilk**
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in about 3 parts alternating with thirds of the banana mixture. Stir the batter after each addition until smooth. Bake in the prepared pans for about ½ hour. Cool completely before frosting.
Although I have never tried it (because I rarely have ripe and frozen bananas out at the same time), the recipe suggests putting banana slices between the layers and then using a white frosting. It also says that if you are serving immediately, you can just sprinkle with powdered sugar or serve with ice cream. However, since I was trying to teach my friends how to make frosting, I decided on the exact opposite of this simple approach and went for a maple buttercream frosting. You could do almost any kind of frosting you want that would taste good with bananas: lemon icing, chocolate ganache, whatevs. Knock yourself out. This frosting was wonderfully fluffy and creamy, and I managed to avoid the thing that often drives me crazy about buttercream frosting which is the tooth-rotting sweetness.
Maple Buttercream frosting
1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature but NOT melted
A few tablespoons maple syrup
3 cups (+/-) powdered sugar
Milk as necessary
I think this kind of frosting is one of the most obvious examples of situations in which you should most definitely not melt your butter if you are trying to get that light fluffy frosting. That means you need to plan ahead and let it sit out for several hours. Fortunately, since the cake layers have to cool, if you get out the butter when you start the rest of the cake (or even when you got out the butter for the cake), you’ll be in good shape.
Using a hand mixer, cream the butter until it is “light and fluffy”. Add the maple syrup (to taste, as they say, although if you start tasting the butter-maple syrup mix you may never actually get as far as having frosting. . . Once that mixture is well mixed and creamy, sift in the powdered sugar. I would argue again for the “to taste” approach here, because you can always add milk if you add too much sugar. I added a small enough quantity of sugar that I didn’t need to add any milk, and there are a range of consistencies that could work out really well.
If the frosting is too runny when you are ready to frost, you can either add more sugar to stiffen it up (if that doesn’t interfere with the flavor you want) or put it in the refrigerator for a few minutes.
*Since I rarely actually buy cake flour at this point, I used all purpose flour. According to the Joy of Baking website, you can substitute one cup cake flour with ¾ cup all-purpose flour and two tablespoons corn-starch. It works amazingly well.
**I have used both at various times with equally great success.
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