Crater Cake

What do you do with your rotting bananas? As I have explained before (and now I am thinking I have an obsession with rotting bananas) I have compiled a couple of absolute family favorite recipes to use up those "toooo brown" bananas in the house. Our families' absolute favorite recipe is for these banana muffins that I have made for 18 years. I tried a million banana muffin and banana bread recipes and when I found this one.... I stopped looking. These were perfection.

The second treasured recipe for using up bananas is called Crater Cake.

Not much to look at, really. Many years ago, a dear old friend brought along this cake for a potluck. When we all went nuts over it, she said.. "well, geesh, you gave me the recipe book that it had the recipe!" How funny was that... and that was the start of our Crater Cake obsession.

I think the reason for the name is that once you take this cake out of the over, it sort of sinks down a bit in irregular patterns... and the inside is moist and filled with chocolate and cinnamon... The picture above shows the furthest cake has been out of the oven for 30 minutes and the closest once is still quite puffy.. as it just came out of the oven.

Crater Cake

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs beaten

3 ripe Bananas

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

3 cups flour

1 cup sour cream

1.5 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cup Brown sugar

Cream together butter and sugar. Add beaten eggs and beat until smooth. Add vanilla and mashed bananas. Mix until smooth. Mix together flour, baking powder and soda. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture alternating with the sour cream. Ending with dry ingredients, (Chantal, that means you add some flour, then half the sour cream, then more flour, then the other half of the sour cream and then end with the rest of the flour-you wanted specific instructions)

Pour half the batter in your 9 x 13 pan (Chantal, you can use your lasagna pan). Combine the sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle half of this mixture over the batter. Top that with half of the chocolate chips. Then spoon the rest of the cake batter using a big spoon, putting dollops of batter evenly over the chocolate chips. Then spread the batter smooth, sprinkle with the rest of the cinnamon/sugar mixture and then sprinkle with chocolate chips. I never measure the chocolate chips.. I put on what I think looks like enough.

Bake in a 350 oven for 45 to 50 minutes. (my oven takes 50 minutes). Let cool for at least an hour. (good luck with that, its a painful wait) It gets lumpy and shallow sink holes...