Banana Rum Cake ~ #TheCakeSliceBakers

Banana's roasted in brown sugar and Bundaberg rum add a wonderful depth of flavor to this Banana

Rum Cake. This is a really easy banana rum cake recipe that would make a great afternoon treat.

The Cake Slice Bakers are excited to announce the new cake-centric cookbook they will bake through in 2024 - The Cake Book: Beautiful Sweet Treats for Every Craving by Rebecca Firth. You may know Rebecca from the Saveur-nominated blog, Displaced Housewife. The Cake Book is a delicious collection of mouthwatering recipes that will fulfill all of your cake needs for any occasion with breakfast cakes, petite cakes, Bundt cakes, snacking cakes and stunning layered cakes.

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of dedicated bakers who all love cake. Each year we choose a new cake-centric cookbook and bake our way through it. Every month we are given 3 choices and on the 20th day of each month we reveal what we have chosen on our blogs. This month's choices were Banana Rum Cake, Chocolate Espresso Cakes with Burnt Caramel, and Negroni Quarantini Cake.  Banana cake is a family favorite so this is the cake I chose to bake this month.

A little planning makes this a quick and easy cake to bake. Roasting the bananas gives this cake a more concentrated banana flavor, and also increases their sugars and sweetness. The result is an intensely sweet and rich banana cake. This cake will please all the banana lovers in your life. I had a few issues with the drizzle and in hindsight I should have added a little more liquid, but once I started to add it to my cake it was too late to try and scrape it off and make it thinner. Maybe some cream cheese in the frosting would also have made it more appealing? 

On a side note I am still sometimes a little confused over the measurements in some of the recipes in this book.  Converting recipes to metric in US baking books seems to be a hit or a miss, as the authors of some books think that grams and milliliters are interchangeable - they are not. Grams are a unit of mass and milliliters are a unit of volume. Add in the fact that a cup measure can vary depending on the brand of measuring cups you purchase, and there does not seem to be any sort of universally accepted measurement of how much a cup should be so there is even more confusion.

Banana Rum Cake

Printer Friendly Recipe

Ingredients

Rum Bananas ~

• 30g (2 tablespoons) butter
• 345g (1½ cups) ripe bananas, peeled and diced (about 3 small bananas)
• 55g (¼ cup) dark brown sugar
• 20ml (2 tablespoons) dark rum

Cake ~

• 220g (1 cup) granulated sugar
• 115g (8 tablespoons) butter, room temperature
• 2g (1 teaspoon) nutmeg
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 100ml (½ cup) good-quality extra-virgin olive oil
• 170 (¾ cup) coarsely mashed bananas (about 1½ bananas)
• 10ml (1 tablespoon) vanilla bean paste or real vanilla extract
• 405g (3 cups) all-purpose flour
• 8g (1½ teaspoons) baking soda
• 6g (1 teaspoon) sea salt
• 240ml (1 cup) buttermilk, shaken and at room temperature

Brown Butter Rum Drizzle ~

• 60 (4 tablespoons) butter
• 180g (1½ cups) powdered sugar, sifted
• 35ml (3 tablespoons) dark rum

Preparation

Rum Bananas ~

1. In a medium skillet set over medium-high heat, melt the butter.
2. Add the bananas and sprinkle with the brown sugar, tossing to coat, but don't over-fuss with them.
3. Let cook for 1 minute, then add the rum and cook for 1 minute more.
4. Pour into a heat-safe bowl to cool; set aside.

Cake ~ 

1. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and nutmeg and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes.
2. With the mixer on low, add in the eggs, one at a time, making sure each is well blended before adding the next.
3. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is combined.
4. With the mixer on low, slowly stream in in the oil until it is completely blended.
5. Add in the mashed banana and vanilla and run the mixer for 30 seconds more.
6. Take the bowl out of the mixer and set aside.
7. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
8. Alternate adding the flour and the buttermilk to the butter mixer in two batches, mixing each addition until just barely combined.
9. Fold in the rum bananas, leaving any excess liquid in the bowl.
10. Spray a 2.8 to 3.5 liter (12 to 15 cup) Bundt pan with baking spray.
11. Pour the batter into the cake pan, gently tapping the pan on the counter several times to release trapped air bubbles and smoothing the top with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon.
12. Bake in the center of the oven for 55 -60 minutes, using a cake tester to ensure the cake is fully cooked.
13. Let the cake sit for 10 minutes on a cooling rack.
14. After 10 minutes, gently run a knife or thin spatula along the rim of the pan, as well as the center tube, to release the cake from the pan.
15. Invert the cooling rack over the top of the pan and then flip the whole thing over, so that the cake gently falls onto the cooling rack, right side up.
16. Let it sit for 1 minute and then slowly lift the pan off of the cake and let it cool on the rack.

Brown Butter Rum Drizzle ~

1. Place the butter in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan and melt over medium heat.
2. Once melted, crank up the heat to medium-high, and continue stirring for 2 - 3 minutes and look for small bronze bits settling on the bottom of the pan.
3. Once this happens, take the pan off the heat and pour into a medium, heat-safe bowl and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes or until cool to the touch.
4. Whisk in the powdered sugar and rum until smooth.
5. Drizzle over the top of the cake and serve.

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is The Cake Book: Beautiful Sweet Treats for Every Craving by Rebecca Firth. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the links below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.

It is a new year and a new book - The Cake Book: Beautiful Sweet Treats for Every Craving - and our choices for March 2024 were ~

Banana Rum Cake

• All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Amandie Bakes

Chocolate Espresso Cakes with Burnt Caramel

• Karen's Kitchen Stories
• My Recipe Reviews

Negroni Quarantini Cake

• No members of the group chose to bake this cake.