Exuberant Ellie

Last weekend I threw a baby shower for my friends M and M--and it was finally an opportunity to bake a fun cake! They do not yet know the gender of their baby, so I decided to stay in the gender neutral arena of greens and yellows (although my sea green looks a little more blue in this picture). I also had a little surprise inside...the actual cake was pink and blue to inspire the guests to guess what the baby will be. I volunteered to bake all the birthday cakes for this baby as I have decided that colorful kid-themed cakes are the most fun to make! I am super excited for M and M, and can't wait to have a little tyke to spoil and play with!

This banana hazelnut cake is a semi-out-of-the-box recipe, basically modified to make it eggless and add the banana/hazelnut. Here is the cake recipe:

Ingredients:

1 box of Duncan Hines Classic White Cake Mix

1.25 cups milk

1 ripe banana, mashed

1-3 tablespoons of Nutella

oil and flour to grease/flour the pan

food coloring (optional) 

frosting of your choice (my favorite is cream cheese)

Preheat the oven to 350°C. Instead of adding eggs and oil as the recipe on the back of the box recommends, add the milk, banana, and Nutella. I normally use 2-3 tablespoons of Nutella, but since I wanted the pink and blue to show up inside and not be too muddied, this time I only used one tablespoon. Whisk together. I usually use the whisk attachment on my hand blender. I split my batter into two parts and dyed them with red and blue food coloring. Grease a cake pan lightly and then sift a couple tablespoons of dry flour over the oil before adding the batter. This makes flipping the cake out of the pan super easy! The batter was thick enough that I could first pour in the blue batter and then the pink, and it did not mix or marble much. Bake at 350°C for 30mins. Let cool for at least 30mins, slide a butter knife around the edges to help loosen the cake from the pan, and then flip out onto a sturdy surface such as a chopping board. Frost. Decorate. Enjoy!

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