Banana Bundt Cake with Toffee Sauce

I'm not kidding when I said I'm going to put this recipe on the blog but boy, did it take a long time for me to do it!

This cake was a hit in my family that I made it twice in a month.  I do love it as well, I thought the cake was very tender, not too sweet, and it allows you add a variety of ingredients to it; for example, dried fruits, chocolate chips, or nuts.  I keep the add-ons less than a cup because I fear that if it's too much, the batter will get too heavy and dense.

The original recipe didn't have anything on it but I added dried currants because they're my number one choice for dried fruits.  These were soaked in a bit of rum for a few hours.   Plus since I had that leftover toffee sauce from making sticky toffee pudding tart, I decided to use it up on this cake.  Everything worked well together and flavor profile was sublime.

I hope you'll enjoy it as well as my family did!

Banana Bundt Cake with Toffee Sauce

Makes one 10- or 12-inch Bundt cake


3/4 cup dried currants
1/4 cup rum or apple juice
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
4 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups)
1 cup sour cream

About 1-1 1/4 cup Toffee Sauce


Place a rack in the center of the oven; preheat oven to 350F degrees.  Generously butter and flour or coat with baker's spray a 10- or 12-inch Bundt cake pan.

Combine dried currants with rum or apple juice and let macerate for a few hours.  Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

Use a paddle attachment on a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar at medium speed until fluffy and pale in color.  Beat in vanilla, then add eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each.  Turn the speed to low, add bananas.  Slowly add dry ingredients and then all of the sour cream.  Fold the macerated currants with juice with a spatula until just combined.  Pour batter into prepared pan.  Smooth the top and bang the pan gently against the counter a few times.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.  If the top starts to brown quickly, cover it lightly with a piece of foil.  Transfer the cake onto a rack and let cool for 10 minutes.  Unmold the cake to a rack and let it cool to room temperature.  If desired, the cake can be covered with plastic wrap and left overnight to develop more flavor.

When the cake is cool, drizzle the toffee sauce over the cake, letting it drips down the sides.


Source:  adapted from Baking with Dorie, Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications, 2017

Pecan Sour Cream Muffins

Today's weather is just glorious.  Spring comes a little early to Oregon because it's been warm and dry lately.  I don't complain much, rain or sun is fine with me, but it's actually nice to not to put on layer upon layer of clothing.  Although the rain will come towards the end of the week, I'm planning to enjoy this warmth as much as I can.

For my weekend baking--this has become my thing, bake only on the weekends--I made pecan sour cream muffins.  The recipe comes from Maida Heatter's book, Cake.  I borrowed it from the library and has started to read it back and forth, and I decided to try this for breakfast today.  There's a lot recipes to try from the book and hopefully I can make as many as I can and blog it.  Sometimes weekend baking is just too short of a time for me, but it's the only time I have during the week to bake.  My family loves it when I bake though, they always have snacks for lunch boxes and after dinner treats.

This muffin batch is easy to make and make wonderful moist and rich muffins.  Yes, they look a little plain but they taste pretty special to me!

Pecan Sour Cream Muffins

Yields 12 large muffins

1 1/3 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
Generous pinch of nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
2 ounces (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
5 1/2 ounces (1 1/3 cups) toasted pecans broken into large pieces, plus 12 large toasted pecan halves


Adjust an oven rack to the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 400F.  Either butter 12 2 3/4-inch muffin tin or line them with cupcake liners.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg, and set aside.

In the small bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until soft.  Beat in the sugar to mix, then add the eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition.  On low speed, add half of the sifted dry ingredients, then all of the sour cream, and then the remaining sifted dry ingredients.  Beat only until smoothly incorporated.  Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the 5 1/2 ounces of pecan pieces.

Spoon into the prepared muffin tins.  It is not necessary to smooth the tops; the muffins will do it themselves during baking.  Place a pecan half, flat side down, on each muffin; press them only slightly into the muffins.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the muffins spring back when pressed lightly with a fingertip.  During baking the muffins will rise with high, nicely rounded, golden-brown tops.

Remove from the pans immediately and place on a rack.  These may be served warm or cooled.


Source:  adapted from Maida Heatter's Cakes