Peanut Butter Banana Upside Down Cake

This decadent cake incorporates banana, peanut butter, and chocolate into one delicious dessert. It’s my take on a chunky monkey milkshake in cake form.

Ingredients:
Topping:
½ c. brown sugar
¼ c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
3-4 bananas cut
Cake:
1 ¼ c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
2/3 c. creamy peanut butter
½ c. butter softened
¾ c. brown sugar
1 large egg
1 ripe banana mashed – I pureed in a food processor for easier mixing
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ c. milk
Choc chips (who am I to judge how much?)

The first step in making an upside down cake is to make the “topping”. First, melt the butter. You could do this in a saucepan and pour it into to the cake pan, but I prefer to put the cake pan on the burner and melt the butter right in there. After the butter is melted, add in the vanilla and brown sugar. Stir to combine and spread out evenly in the pan.

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Then, take your cut bananas and align them along the pan. You can cut your bananas into slices or lengthwise. I chose lengthwise to get the design I was looking for. If doing this, place the cut end down onto the pan.

Now, you can go ahead and make the batter. Mix dry ingredients together and set aside. You will be adding these gradually later. Beat together sugar, peanut butter, and butter until light and fluffy. To make measuring the peanut butter easier, I spray the measuring cup with cooking spray before measuring it out so that the peanut butter comes out easily, and doesn’t stick to the cup.

Next, add in the banana, egg, and vanilla. Instead of mashing the banana, I put it in a food processor to make it more smooth, and also because I’m lazy. Slowly beat in until well mixed and then slowly add the flour mixture and milk simultaneously. I did 3 additions of flour and 2 of milk, starting with flour and alternating between the two. The batter should be thick.

Now it’s time for the chocolate chips! A trick I learned is that if you toss the chocolate chips in a bit of flour (1-2tbsp) it helps make sure that they stay immersed in the batter and don’t all sink to the bottom. I used about half of a bag of mini chocolate chips, but I could have used more, and I don’t see who I am to tell you how many chocolate chips to add. Live your life!

Carefully add the batter to the cake pan. The batter is THICC so I found it best to take out scoops and plop them around the pan, and then gently smooth it out so that you don’t disturb the beautiful banana artwork you created at the bottom.

Bake at 350 F for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 5-10 minutes and then flip. To flip, place a serving plate on top of the cake pan, and carefully flip over, sliding the pan off of the cake. If you wait more than 10 minutes it could make it more likely to stick.

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