buttermilk banana chocolate chip cake

* from the chatelaine cookbook by elaine collett, © 1973

1 cup soft butter
1 7/8 cups packed brown sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups cake and pastry flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 /4 cups buttermilk
1 7/8 cups mashed over-ripe bananas
1 cup chocolate chunks (I used Ghirardelli double chocolate chunks.yum)

directions:

1. Grease bottoms of pans and line with parchment (I used a 9" pan for the
base, a 6" one for the middle tier and a and a 4" pan for the top tier); grease and flour parchment and set aside.

2. Beat butter, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy (I beat
the butter first, separately until light and fluffy, added the sugar, then
the eggs - one at a time - and then the vanilla. It seems to work best that
way).

3. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and add alternately
to butter mixture with bananas and buttermilk and then stir in the chocolate
chunks.

4. Pour and spread in prepared pans and bake at 375 F for 40 - 50 minutes,
or until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

5. Cool for 5 - 10 minutes in pans and then invert onto cooling racks to
cool completely before icing.

6. Ice with white buttercream icing refrigerating between coats and smoothing out crinkles and grooves with warmed spatula. Add green swirls and red, white and pink dots for fun and frivolity (or if you, like me, get tired of decorating after the buttercream and give up on being creative).

notes: