Banana Cream Pie- Cake

Ingredients

Cake Ingredients:

3 large Ripe Bananas (about 1 and 1/2 cups mashed)

3 cups All purpose Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup softened unsalted butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

3 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups Buttermilk

(Buttermilk Substitute: Add 1 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice, to a measuring cup and fill remaining cup with milk to equal 1 1/2 cups. Set aside for 5 minutes to sour milk)

Filling Ingredients:

3.4 oz Instant Banana Pudding mix

2 cups Milk

1 box Vanilla wafer cookies

Frosting:

Store bought Whipped Frosting

(Walmart bakery is my favorite. They sell bags of it right from the Bakery)

Or Whipped cream

Directions

1. Make the instant pudding, by following the directions on the box and keep in the refrigerator until your cakes have cooled completely.

* Mix dry pudding mix with 2 cups of cold milk and place in the fridge until set.

2. Preheat oven to 350⁰ and grease three 9x 2 inch round cake pans. Line the pan bottoms with parchment paper as well, to ensure easy cake removal.

3. For the cake, mash the bananas by hand or with a hand mixer and set aside.

4. Whisk all the dry ingredients together ( flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt) and set aside.

5. Using a hand mixer or rubber spatula blend the butter and sugars (granulated and brown) together until creamy.

6. Beat in eggs and vanilla into creamy butter mixture until well combined. Then add in mashed banana.

7. Next alternate adding buttermilk and the dry ingredient mixture into the banana batter, but do not over mix. The batter will be thick and slightly lumpy.

8. Pour the batter evenly into the three pans and bake for 22- 26 minutes, depending on your oven. Cakes are ready when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

8. Place cakes on a wire rack until they are at room temperature.

* I usually will place them in the fridge or freezer for 5 minutes or so to speed up this process.

9. Once your cakes have cooled, you can start the assembly process, by layering banana pudding and your wafer cookies in between each cake. (Cake, pudding, wafers, pudding, cake, etc.)

* Placing a ring of whipped frosting or cool whip around the edge of the cake before adding the pudding will help prevent any filling leakage.