Banana Caramel Cake

Banana Caramel Cake was a challenge from Matt. He was trying to come up with something new and did not disappoint.

We love to try new things and Matt had said he thought it would be good to make a caramel banana cake. I hesitated on this, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turnout but it was awesome and everyone loved it!

Ingredients

Cake

1 (15.25-ounce) box butter pecan cake mix, such as Betty Crocker Super-Moist Butter Pecan
1 cup milk
2 cups puréed banana (about 3 small bananas)
3 large eggs
¼ cup salted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting

2 cups room temperature browned butter
2/3 cup heavy cream
3 to 4 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Filling

1 cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt
Sliced Bananas

Directions

CAKE: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Crisco two 8″ pans and then dust them with flour, then I put parchment at the bottom.
In a medium bowl, combine cake mix, 1 cup water, banana purée, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer at medium speed 1 minute. Increase mixer speed to high, and beat 2 minutes.
Spoon batter into prepared pans. Bake until light golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven, and cool in pans 10 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool completely. Then freeze overnight if you want to. I like to because it makes them easier to decorate.
Before decorating cut the bananas into 1/4″ slices. Then make the caramel so it has time to cool.
CARAMEL :Combine ingredients in small pot and stir together so they’re mostly dissolved.
Place over medium-low heat and cook for 7-8 minutes leaving it alone until it bubbles and thickens.
Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla then transfer to a bowl to cool, you’ll want to cool it before putting it on the cake so it doesn’t melt the frosting.
FROSTING: Add 4 sticks of butter to a pot and cook over medium low heat stirring occasionally until the milk solids in the butter caramelize and darken. Be careful of splatters!
Once the butter has darkened transfer to a bowl and chill until almost solid. The brown butter will be slow to cool and thicken back up so make sure to do this step in advance. I let mine cool in the fridge while making the caramel.
Cream the butter in a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
Add in the salt and powdered sugar gradually and beat together.
Add vanilla and cream until desired consistency is achieved.
Decorate as desired. I frosted the cakes, put caramel and banana slices in the middle and then did the same on top!