This is a great, easy recipe that isn't incredibly fattening. It's versatile, as you can use either pumpkin, apple sauce, or mashed bananas. Ice with a simple buttercream icing or a cream cheese frosting.
2 eggs
1/3 cup melted butter, or vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup mashed over-ripe bananas, OR canned pumpkin puree, OR 3/4 cup smooth apple sauce
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp each ground nutmeg, allspice, and cloves
Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, butter/oil (make sure the butter has cooled a bit) and sugars. With an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy - about 1 minute. Add whatever fruit you're using and blend very well. In a separate bowl, sift together your dry ingredients - flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and spices. You can omit the spices in the banana version if you don't think they work. Add the dry ingredients in two or three additions, with a wooden spoon or spatula, and stir just until all the dry ingredients are fully incorporated. Pour into a greased and floured 8" or 9" square pan. Bake 40 - 45 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean when inserted in the middle. Cool completely on a wire rack before icing it, slice and serve.
Notes to the readership.
1. For God's sake - don't overmix this or your cake might sink once it comes out of the oven because you've incorporated too much air.
2. Also, you can mix the dry ingredients in with the electric mixer - just be very brief about it. A) you don't want to overmix (see above) but B) you also don't want to work your flour too much. Cakes, cookies, etc. generally turn out better when you fold in the flour by hand because using an electric device tends to work the gluten in the flour too much, then you don't wind up with as tender a product in the end.
3. If you use the pumpkin, DO NOT use pumpkin pie filling! It's not pure pumpkin and contains sugars and seasonings that may or may not work here. You need to use pure pumpkin and pure pumpkin only.
2 comments:
A wonderful recipe!
It quickly became my preferred snack item to bring with me to work in order to avoid the usual vending machine fare.
BTW - this great blog has just been linked to on both my blogsites.
Thanks for visiting - please come back soon, and please keep adding the super recipes. Us slightly chunky and lazy-in-the-kitchen types will benefit dearly.
:)
Yeah, I would say this is a big improvement over those bran muffins injected with the butter-like substance! I'm glad you liked the recipe, and thank you for stopping by. I know I'll always get a good laugh when I visit your den.
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