Banana Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting

I told you I'd be back with more vanilla bean recipes. Well, here I am. Still loving my vanilla beans. My soft, pliable, delightfully aromatic vanilla beans. It has crossed my mind to try eating a vanilla bean. They smell so freakin' amazing, why wouldn't they taste good? But then, I remember the time I tried a sip of vanilla extract. Talk about a wolf in sheep's clothes. So I've refrained.

Has anyone else tried a bite of a vanilla bean? Just curious, that's all :)

It has also crossed my mind that I might purposefully hoard overripe bananas, just so I can put them in baked goods. The jury's still out on that one. What the jury's not still out on is this cake! So moist, fluffy, and delicious. I tweaked my frosting recipe to include vanilla bean, and yum! If you really like frosting, you might want to double the frosting recipe. I'm that weirdo that only likes a little bit of frosting.

I think overripe bananas are going to be making even more appearances on my counter. That's saying something, as I always have an illustrious amount of overripe bananas.

Ingredients:

Cake-
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg, room temp
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 very ripe bananas
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Frosting-
1/4 cup milk
1/2 vanilla bean
1.25 tbsp flour (that's 1 tbsp and 3/4 tsp)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease a 8 x 8 pan.
2. For the cake: In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar, until pale and creamy. Beat in egg. Beat in Greek yogurt. Beat in vanilla. Beat in soft bananas. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add flour mixture to banana mixture, mix until well combined. Pour batter evenly into greased pan. Bake in pre-heated oven 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven, and let cool completely before frosting.
3. For the frosting: Add milk to a small saucepan. Cut vanilla bean in half lengthwise, and scrape seeds into the milk. Add vanilla bean to milk. Heat over medium heat, until small bubbles appear around the edges of the milk. Remove from heat, and let milk sit for 15 minutes. Discard vanilla bean. Add flour to the milk, and heat over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until mixture becomes thick. Stir in the vanilla extract. Remove from heat, and let completely cool. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until very pale and creamy (take your time on this, because you don't want your frosting to be grainy from unincorporated sugar). Add flour mixture to the butter mixture, and beat until frosting takes on texture of whip cream (about 5-7 minutes). Chill in fridge for 15 minutes before frosting.
4. Remove cake from the pan. Spread frosting on top the cake. Store cake in the fridge, since the frosting is milk based.

Recipe adapted from ButterYum