We Couldn’t Make One of The Weddings, So We Baked You A Cake…
And we ate it too! THE END.
No not really the end, but we did eat it, mostly Addie as usual. We couldn’t make the Hawaiian wedding but it goes without saying we’re in Lebanon, this summer, for the big one. Could you be more wedding-centric? Who the hell has two weddings without a divorce in between?
We love you little sister & Aquamatt- we wish you all the happiness, love, harmony, butterflies, marshmallows and fluffy clouds, with a few dolphins thrown in between.
Here’s a Hawaiian-inspired banana rum cake (heavy on the rum) with a generous dose of Nutella and coconut buttercream to hold you up till Lebanon.
Love,
Addie, Bethany, Chris, Dad, Eli, & Mela xoxoxo
For the cake (Makes 1 cake- you will need three)
- 175g all purpose flour
- 150g sugar
- 150g unsalted butter
- 3 small ripe bananas- mashed
- 2 medium eggs or 3 small ones
- 1/2 cup Malibu Rum
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 15in cake pan
For the layers
- Nutella
For the buttercream
- 225g of unsalted butter at room temperature
- 50ml coconut milk
- 500g of confectioner’s sugar
- 100g of desiccated coconut
- pinch of salt
For decorations
- 400g of white chocolate
- Sugar paste
- Butterfly cookie cutters
- Food coloring (pick your color)
To make the cake
- Preheat oven to 338F/170C/4G.
- Mix melted butter with sugar and beat until incorporated.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas and finally the Malibu Rum.
- Add the flour mixture (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt) in little by little, stirring well.
- Scrape into a buttered tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1 hour 40 minutes. Insert toothpick to test readiness and if it comes out dry then the cake is ready. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn cake out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the buttercream
- Mix the butter with the confectioner’s sugar, coconut milk, desiccated coconut and salt.
To temper the chocolate
- Bring water to a boil in a pot. break up your chocolate into a measuring cup or bowl and place over the water (bain-marie).
- Continually whisk the chocolate until it is melted and registers 115 F/46C.
- Once the chocolate reaches 115 F/46C, remove it from heat and allow it to reach 90F/32C.
- Mix in your food coloring and stir well until it is all incorporated. Pour the colored chocolate into a bag (as soon as it reaches 95F/35C or anything below makes for sloppy piping ) and begin pipping it.
To make the decorations
- Using several cookie sheets and a ball point pen or pencil, stencil out your preferred design. Be sure to tape all four corners of the sheet to ensure no movement during piping.
- For easy, smooth and better detailed design be sure to pipe as much of the tempered chocolate before it reaches 70F/21C. Pipe the chocolate thick so when it’s placed on the cake it does not break or melt as quickly.
- Place the piped chocolate (still on the stencil) in the freezer for 15 minutes or until ready to decorate. Once ready to decorate allow the chocolate decoration to cool slightly which will better allow it to take certain shapes easily.
- For the sugar paste: dye your ready made sugar paste with color of choice and roll it out thinly. Cut out desired shapes using mini cookie cutters.
(It’s okay to improvise)
Assemble the cake
- Once the cakes have cooled, place one cake onto a cake stand. Shave off any uneven bits and then spread generously with Nutella. Add another layer of the cake and repeat with another generous layer of Nutella. Finish by stacking the last cake, creating a three-layered cake.
- Frost the cake by spreading the coconut buttercream on the top of the cake and then covering the cake entirely.
- Finish by decorating accordingly.
What a pretty cake! It looks so classy and delicious.
Cheers,
Rosa
A truly amazing cake for a truly amzing sister. Good Luck Joslin & Matt.
Aw! This is so cute
& it looks DELISH!
What a gorgeous cake!!
Cake looks very good. Love that pic of the happy couple underwater.
Good to see DAIRY FREE buttercream too
Love the cake and the photo below of the couple under water! I would almost want to get married again; well, maybe, just for a day~Your creativity and taste is an inspiration Beth.
Fantastic cake – it looks like moulded plaster from Georgians times (in an edible way). I love posts about sisters as it makes me think of mine.
Thank you all. She’s officially hitched. x
Oh Bethany, what a lovely thing to bake for your sister.
Wishing them heaps of happiness. 
Beautiful cake and colors! Love your sense of humor too.
I cried my eyes out on this post! Thank you so much. It meant so much to me, this was so sweet! I missed each of you, intensely.
is that underwater photo for real ? outstanding ! totally makes me want to get married again (to olivier, ahem) !!! but not in france, so i can actually have a wedding cake ! and guess who i’d ask to bake it…
gorgeous, b. the cake and your intentions. mazel tov to the newlyweds ! xxx
ps, nice use of band-aids !
this cake is a dream. we are not used to see such cakes in France.
Wow, that sounds like an amazing cake. I’ll have to try it.
Wow, the cake looks almost too beautiful to eat….almost!
Congrats to your sister and ah-maaazing job on this cake. It’s a work of art!
That is one outstanding looking cake. Looks almost to good to eat.
I love your blog, thank you thank you thank you for sharing this great blog with us, allah ikhaleek habibti, I have never tried to cook lebanease food but now that i found your blog full og freat ideas, i will start now, I am planing to visit Jounieh next year, my brother who lived there in 1990 said it was the best place in the world.
tres bonne continuation et je suis une fan maintenant de votre blog, mettez nous plus de recettes libanaises
Merci
Naima – London
nice blog u have. first time here. i love lebanese. would love to revisit