elvis cake

i made a cake for rick's birthday. there are no photos because a) food i make never looks photo-worthy, and b) we ate it immediately.

apparently elvis liked peanut butter and bananas. i did not know this, but every time i mention this cake, people say, "oh! an elvis cake." since it's chock full of peanut butter and bananas, it's the elvis cake. it's delicious.

the cake can be made from scratch. i find with the help of my little bean baker, there is often a power struggle over measuring which causes me to often lose track and miscount, and ultimately leads to me spending the next several hours cleaning flour from every inch of my kitchen. so i use a box mix. here's what you do:

• use one box of yellow cake mix. (if you want to start from scratch, only use the dry ingredients from the plain yellow cake recipe.)
• in a bowl, combine 1 stick of butter and 2/3 cup of peanut butter (i prefer the natural, creamy kind.) beat it until it's combined.
  
• add 2 ripe bananas, medium size. (this is where the bean likes to start tasting.)
  
• add 4 eggs.
• begin to add the cake mix. start with 2/3 cup of water, and start alternating adding water and cake mix. only add enough water so that the batter looks like cake mix (and not thick like banana bread.) how much water you need seems to vary on the bananas.
• butter 2 - 9" round pans, cook at 325 degrees. check it at 25 minutes, but most likely it will take 30 or so. it's done when a toothpick comes clean.

that's it! i think it would be fantastic with chocolate icing, but rick isn't a fan of chocolate, so i just use plain old buttercream icing.

Portrait of Elvis Linoleum Block Print by HorseandHare