Grandpa's Banana Cake

This afternoon, I stumbled upon a pile of overly ripe bananas already beginning to issue a siren song to all fruit flies within a five mile radius. As I pondered the integrity of the banana peels (would they make it to the garbage can intact?), I had a flashback to my grandparents' kitchen. My grandpa had an extreme "liking" for banana cake. My grandma had a taste for overly ripe bananas. The scenario would play out something like this. My grandpa would hide some bananas, hoping against all hopes, that they would last long enough to rot into acceptable banana cake material. Just about the time they were approaching banana cake nirvana, my grandma would find his stash and snatch them back from the brink of certain "cake-hood". And round and round it went; grandpa hiding the bananas and grandma eating them. When we all were fortunate enough to reap the rewards of grandpa's crafty banana stashing, he would bake the most divine banana cake ever.

This afternoon, I decided it was time to remake grandpa's recipe into something I could eat again. With lots of help from my kids (see the bits of mashed banana in my hair), we recreated a family favorite.

1/2 cup Crisco Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup SO Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk

1 tsp white vinegar

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

2 mashed bananas

Combine vinegar with coconut milk and set aside.

Cream Crisco, sugar applesauce, and vanilla.

Mix in salt and baking soda, distributing thoroughly.

Add mashed bananas and vinegar/coconut milk mixture and stir.

Stir in the flour until completely combined.

Bake at 350 in a well greased pan; 30 mins for a 9 x 13; 40 mins for a Bundt.

Invert immediately and cool.

This cake is delicious warm from the oven, cooled, with powdered sugar or a glaze. Cream cheese frosting (vegan cream cheese, of course) is also a decadent addition to this dense, moist cake.