Chocolate Chip Banana Cake

It's been rainy and cold around here lately. And I feel like nothing has been going my way this week. So I decided to make a cake.
Cakes always make me feel better. I like the whole process of making a cake. Measuring things out. Mixing. I think if the batter is good the cake will be good. But I never try the batter. I have a weird thing about raw eggs. I don't even let my kids have the batter. They have been totally deprived of cookie dough. Hahahhaa.

I had some pretty sad looking bananas on my counter so I put them to use in this cake. I usually make my cakes from scratch but I found that if you swap out some ingredients, you can make box mix taste awesome.
Instead of water use milk.
Sub butter for oil
Add extra eggs.

I like to do 3 layers because who doesn't like more frosting ;)

Chocolate Chip Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Honey Frosting

Ingredients

For the Cake
1 French vanilla cake mix
3/4 c. Milk
1/3 c. Melted butter
4 eggs
1 c. brown bananas, smashed
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 c. mini chocolate chips or regular chocolate chips

For the Frosting
1 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. peanut butter
4 tbsp. water
3 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. salt
4 c. powdered sugar
Tbs extra milk

Instructions
For the Cake
Butter and flour 3, 8 inch pans.
Combine the cake mix, baking soda, cinnamon, melted butter, milk, and eggs and beat on low for 1 minute. Increase the mixer speed a little bit and beat for 2 more minutes. Stir in the bananas and chocolate chips. Pour the batter in. Bake at 350* for 20- 25 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes then flip out on a wire rack to cool completely. Place the first layer on a plate and spread frosting on top. Place the second cake layer on top and spread. Place the third layer on top and cover the entire cake with frosting.

For the Frosting
Cream butter and peanut butter. Add 2 Tbsp. water, salt, and vanilla and cream again. Slowly add the powdered sugar. After all the sugar is added, beat in the honey until creamy. If the frosting is too thick, beat in another 1-2 Tbsp. water until creamy. Add extra milk if needed and beat until fluffy.


First, butter and flour your pans. I always want to skip this step but its so worth it in the end. I hate making a perfect cake but it won't come out of the pan. Ruins it all.

If you've never done it before its super easy.
Rub butter all over the pans.

Then put about a tablespoon of flour in the pans.

Shake it all around and dump out the excess flour.

Done.

Now put all the cake ingredients in a bowl except for the bananas and chocolate chips.

Mix everything together.

Add bananas.

Mix in chocolate chips.

Pour into prepared pans.

The frosting was harder to take pictures of because it was a mess.

But this is how you frost the whole cake if you don't know how.
Put a lot of frosting on top and push it to the sides of the cake.

Then push the frosting over the edge.

Turn your knife vertically. And try to get the frosting in all the little cracks.

Put enough frosting to cover all the cake.

It may not be super beautiful but it sure does taste good.

I have so much extra I don't know what to do with it. Dylan woke up from his nap today and asked for cake. I think he was dreaming about it.

So if you have some sad bananas make them happy and but them into a cake. You can feel happy about eating cake when there is fruit in it right?


XoXOxOXo
Stephanie