Banana Nut Cake — The Cake That Doesn’t Need to Know the Occasion

I turned sixty-four this week. The birthday was better than last year — almost anything would be better than a pandemic birthday for two — but different from the birthdays before the disease. Different because Marvin sat at the table and ate the cake and smiled and did not know it was my birthday. He ate the cake because it was cake, and cake is good, and the goodness of cake does not require knowledge of the occasion. I have made my peace with this. The cake does not need Marvin to know it's my birthday. The cake needs Marvin to eat it. He ate it.

David brought the grandchildren. All four of them, tumbling into the Oceanside house like a small invasion force composed entirely of noise and love. Ethan gave me a card he made at school — construction paper, glitter, the words "Happy Birthday Bubbe" in crooked letters that were clearly written by a seven-year-old who has not yet internalized the concept of straight lines. It is the most beautiful card I have ever received, more beautiful than any of Marvin's thirty-six handwritten cards, because it was made by hands that are just learning to make things, and everything that is just beginning is precious.

Rebecca came with wine and a volume of Chekhov's short stories — in Russian, because she reads Russian now, the show-off, and she wanted me to have a copy in the original. I said, "I don't read Russian." She said, "Then I'll read it to you." She opened the book and read "The Lady with the Dog" in Russian, and I did not understand a word, and it was the most beautiful sound I have heard in months, because my daughter's voice reading Chekhov in Russian is the sound of a mind I helped create, a love of language I helped nurture, a chain that extends from the Grand Concourse to Columbia University to a kitchen in Oceanside where a sixty-four-year-old woman is listening to her thirty-three-year-old daughter read Russian literature aloud, and the literature is about love, and the love is in the room, and the room holds all of us.

Miriam called from Tel Aviv. "Happy birthday, little sister," she said, which is her joke — I am the older sister, but she has been calling me "little sister" since she was three and realized she was taller. "Happy birthday," she said, and sang in Yiddish, and I cried, because the Yiddish is Sylvia's, and Sylvia is everywhere today, in the cake and the candles and the song and the kitchen where I stand, sixty-four years old, holding a phone and a ladle and everything I have ever loved.

The cake I made for my sixty-fourth birthday was this one — the Banana Nut Cake my mother Sylvia used to bake, dense and sweet and faintly spiced, the kind of cake that fills a kitchen with a smell that means home before you even know you’re hungry. I chose it because Marvin has always loved bananas, and because it needs no occasion to justify itself, and because on a day when I was holding so much — a glitter card from Ethan, Rebecca’s Russian Chekhov, Miriam’s Yiddish singing across an ocean — I needed a cake that was simply, uncomplicatedly good. It was. It is. Here it is.

Banana Nut Cake

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, divided
• For the cream cheese frosting:
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan or two 9-inch round cake pans with butter or nonstick spray, then dust lightly with flour.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with the granulated and brown sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3–4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
4. Add eggs and banana. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and mashed bananas, and mix until combined — the batter may look slightly curdled at this stage; that’s fine.
5. Alternate dry and wet. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the sour cream in two additions (flour, sour cream, flour, sour cream, flour). Mix just until no dry streaks remain — do not overmix.
6. Fold in the nuts. Stir in 3/4 cup of the chopped nuts by hand, reserving the rest for topping.
7. Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s) and spread evenly. Bake for 35–40 minutes (for a 9x13 pan) or 28–32 minutes (for round pans), until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is golden brown.
8. Cool completely. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then turn out and cool completely before frosting — at least 1 hour.
9. Make the frosting. Beat the cream cheese and butter together until completely smooth. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt, and beat on medium-high until fluffy and spreadable, about 2 minutes.
10. Frost and finish. Spread the cream cheese frosting over the cooled cake. Scatter the reserved chopped nuts over the top. Slice and serve at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 480 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 24g | Carbs: 63g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 280mg