The Ever-Changing Granny Cake

This cake recipe has been called everything from backyard fence cake (supposedly how the recipe was created) to granny cake, to my grandmother's name for it "Dump Cake."

The batter and manner of baking holds up to about any kind of sweet canned fruit complete with syrup that you want to put in it. With all the kids over the years, I've never seen anyone turn their nose up and refuse it. In fact, it was often requested at birthdays instead of the usual bakery cake I offered. Sigh. They would make me work. Why couldn't they just choose a simple sugary sheet cake?!

I baked this so many times, that I memorized the recipe, but the last few years, with the kids gone, baking it just seemed "too, too." Somethings just belong on the big dinner table.

As a sucker for gentle, this cake gets me. I've been all emotionally ooey gooey lately, so I'm diggin' this recipe back out and baking it this weekend, or "I'll-be-darned!"

I'm warnin' ya tho' - it packs a whoppin' number of calories, but you don't have to count 'em if you don't want to. If you're diabetic, use Splenda, and dietetic canned fruit and you have my deepest sympathy, but at least you'll be around to receive it and I won't get hate mail from your family.

Don't bother frosting it, but some people do shake powdered sugar over it, and you can use whipping cream if you think you need that extra moment of fluff on the tongue.

Marisue's Grandmother's Dump Cake

Beginning Ingredients:

• Room temp 3/4 c butter
• Room temp 3 eggs

Dry Ingredients:

• 3 c all purpose flour (NOT SELF RISING)
• 2 c sugar (or Splenda)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 to 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt (it requires it, that's a lot of flour)
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves (just do it)

Wet Ingredients:

• 2 c mashed ripe banana (ready to eat, NOT GREEN)
• 1 8 oz can crushed pineapple (DO NOT DRAIN)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (USE REAL VANILLA, NOT IMMITATION)
• Optional: 1 c chopped pecans, walnuts, or your favorite, if using almonds, make them slivered. dust them with a tiny bit of flour until they're coated. This will keep them from sinking to the bottom of your cake.

You're Gonna Love This Procedure:

1. Grease and flour a tube pan, or bundt pan.
2. Preheat oven to 325F.
3. Stir together dry ingredients, set aside.
4. With mixer, beat butter just until softened, less than a minute.
5. Add eggs, bananas and other wet ingredients. Beat until combined. Stop.
6. Add flour/dry ingredient mixture to the banana mixture, beat on low just until combined plus 1 minute. DO NOT OVERBEAT THE CAKE BATTER, it makes it tough.
7. Stir in nuts carefully.
8. Spoon the batter into the pan, and bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
9. Remove it from the oven, let it set about 10 or 12 minutes, then invert the cake on a wire rack and continue to let it cool. Leaving it in the pan will cause it to "sweat" and could crumble a bit.
10. Dust it with powdered sugar if you must and add cool whip to each serving.

It is to DIE for!

Variations: Instead of the crushed pineapple, I've used canned peaches in heavy syrup, but only about 1/4 of the syrup, adding more as needed to make the batter the same consistency as with the crushed pineapple. Chop the peaches small and make sure they're tender, meaning purchase cling free, and a good brand. Experiment with other fruit, keeping the same consistency and liquid levels.

Enjoy, and don't blame the calories on me!  More recipes.