Star Cake
Willa is fascinated with parties. We've been lucky to attend several in the past few months.
One day we were driving to a party. Willa was very excited. She asked us a bunch of questions including "Will they have cake at the party?" That lead to a whole conversation about cakes which lead Willa to say "Mama, you make a star cake with me?" I said "Sure, I'd love to make a star cake with you."
I think it's very important that I follow through when I promise things to Willa, so a few days later, we made a star cake together.
The funny thing about this whole situation is that Willa doesn't usually like cake. She doesn't really like sweets, but I did notice that she liked the whipped cream that was on a cake we had at a party, so I decided to ice and fill our star cake with whipped cream.
She loved it.
I made vanilla whipped cream, and then separated some of it and added cocoa powder to make chocolate whipped cream to fill the cake with.
The cake itself was a healthy banana cake made with whole wheat flour, and agave nectar instead of sugar.
It was a hit.
As someone who grew up in the kitchen baking with her mother, and then eventually went to culinary school and became a chef, I can not tell you how awesome it was to bake with my own child.
*As requested, here is the recipe for healthier Banana Cake:
2 cups Whole Wheat flour
2/3 cup Agave Nectar
3/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
3 large, ripe (the riper the better) Bananas
1/4 cup Plain or Vanilla Yogurt
2 large Eggs beaten a little bit
4 tablespoons of butter, melted
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl on high in 30 second increments until melted. Set aside to cool.
Mix together all dry ingredients.
Mash bananas and then with a fork, stir in the yogurt, then the eggs, the vanilla, the agave nectar and the butter.
Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix. Be careful not to over-mix.
Pour into a greased cake or loaf pan.
Bake for approximately 45 minutes.
If baking in a cake pan, start checking for doneness after 35 minutes.
If baking in a loaf pan it can take up to an hour.
Tips-
If you find that it is too brown, next time you make it, lower the oven temperature 25 degrees to 325.
You can add chocolate chips- add at the end of mixing.
You can add blueberries or raspberries.
If you are an experienced baker, and up for some experimenting, you can do a couple of fun things, like add pureed blueberries, or ground nuts. Some people, like children (and me) do not like big pieces of blueberries or nuts in their banana bread/cake, but still want the nutrients they provide. So, I puree blueberries or ground some nuts to add to the batter. This upsets the moisture content in the recipe, so you need to compensate. If you add blueberry puree then you need to maybe add a bit more flower are take out a bit of yogurt, and if you add the ground nuts, you need to add moisture. You'll have to experiment to get it where you like it.
*If you make this recipe please let me know in the comments.
Comments
Must have recipe for healthy banana cake!
Posted by: Liat | September 23, 2009 05:02 PM
wow you two are so cute! i'm printing this recipe to hopefully try soon; it looks so yummy.
Posted by: Sarcomical | September 23, 2009 08:02 PM
Next time you have one of those days where you feel you can't do anything right, or are just feeling down, go back to this post. You are doing a-okay:)
Looks yummy - will you make one for me?? :)
Posted by: Farrell | September 24, 2009 02:16 PM
Oh, Torrie, Willa is such a pretty little girl. She still has so much baby left in her wispy curly hair and her face and in the pudginess of her arms. She's lovely.
Please take more action shots like this for the rest of us. :)
Posted by: Cristina | September 24, 2009 05:20 PM
Looks like a great activity! I'll have to remember to try this next time I have bananas ready.
Posted by: Jenski | September 25, 2009 01:27 PM
Hiya Torrie!
LOVE the cake. Absolutely adorable and touching.
I wanted to reply to you about the melatonin but twitter's limited text drives me crazy.
I've been using it for the past 3 months now and have never slept better. I have had sleeping problems my entire life. It takes about 30 minutes for me to stay asleep, I wake up 3-6 times in the night and it takes another half hour to fall asleep again each time. (I've had a sleep study done and they found nothing.)
Anyway, someone recommended melatonin to me and it is AMAZING. Aside for one or two nights, I have slept like a normal person for 3 months straight.
I've tried sleeping pills in the past and I can't stand them. I feel groggy in the morning and in the evening it more knocks me out than knocking me unconscious. It's more like lying there trapped in your own body than. Melatonin doesn't do that. It's a natural thing so when you are ready to go to sleep, you feel tired and actually sleep, no hand smacking you down and saying "YOU! BE UNCONSCIOUS!"
So I know I'm a random stranger, but I just wanted to share my own melatonin success story. It's cheap to try, totally non-addictive and after using it for a night or two, you'll see why some people give it so much praise!
And sorry if this is kind of incoherent. It's late (though I'm up deliberately)!
Posted by: Jessica | September 26, 2009 02:41 AM
That is just so awesome, Torrie! Your little girl is getting so big and is looking more and more like you every day! And she is obviously following in your footsteps to being a chef!
Posted by: Katie | September 28, 2009 09:21 AM
I see cake in my future this weekend. I have a question though. How do you keep the whipped cream filling from breaking down inside the cake? It's been my experience that even if cream is whipped pretty stiff it'll start to break down after a day.
Posted by: Kim | September 29, 2009 11:10 AM
Kim, the only thing I can think is that you are over-whipping it.
Posted by: torrie | September 29, 2009 11:13 AM