Banana cake with cream cheese frosting

My husband LOVES bananas. Me, not so much. They are okay, BUT only if they are perfectly ripe and there are no bruises and not even a speck of green on the skin. I usually don't like banana cakes or breads but this one is actually pretty good and not too dry. I found the recipe on the recipezaar web site. There are some unusual components to this recipe and I did not follow the instructions exactly. I'll type out the original recipe and then note the changes I made.

Cake:
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 1/8 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Frosting:
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces softened cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 275F. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan. In a small bowl, mix mashed bananas and lemon juice, set aside. In a medium bowl, mix flour, salt and baking soda, set aside. In a large bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and 2 1/8 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time and then stir in 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Stir in the bananas. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Remove cake from the oven and place in freezer for 45 minutes, this will make for a very moist cake.

For the frosting, cream butter and cream cheese until smooth. Beat in vanilla. Slowly beat in powdered sugar until frosting is smooth. Spread frosting on cooled cake. You can decorate with walnut halves if you choose.

My notes: This recipe makes a HUGE cake. I ended up freezing most of it. I did cook the cake at 275F but it took more than an hour until it was done. You will have to go with the toothpick method to ensure that the cake is fully cooked since 275F is such an unusual temperature for a cake. When the cake was done I did not put it into the freezer immediately as I did not want to risk defrosting any of my other frozen foods. Instead, I covered the cake with tinfoil and let it cool on a cake rack (still in the pan). The cake was indeed very moist. For the frosting, I cut back on the butter and sugar. I don't like overly sweet frostings.

It turned out to be a very tasty and moist cake. Good for a party with lots of people or a holiday dinner.

**Remember to recycle the tinfoil and any wrappings or containers!