When I asked my mom what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she said, half joking, "How about a banana split cake?"I accepted the challenge, and began drawing up my plans. It would be a magnificent bundt cake, with ice cream and banana slices in the middle, whipped cream frosting, and beautiful pieces of strawberry and pineapple overflowing from the center. A strawberry syrup drizzle, a split banana, and a maraschino cherry topped it off perfectly.
Little did I know that this cake would live up to its name and become a true Banana Split Cake...
All was going well. I had baked and cooled the cake, cut it in half, and cut out a bit of the center to make room for bananas and ice cream. I carefully placed my banana slices and spread the ice cream onto each half of the cake. I tried to move the bottom half of the cake (the hollowed out half) onto a glass pie plate. I picked it up and placed it on the pie dish... which was too small for the cake. It broke into three pieces, and ice cream leaked everywhere (by now it was starting to melt, which was why I had tried to move it as quickly as possible so I could get it back in the freezer). After a brief meltdown on my part (get it, meltdown? okay, bad joke), during which my mom saved the day by putting the cake on a plate that was actually big enough for it, I pushed the three pieces together, fixed the ice cream, and quickly put it in the freezer. By the time it came out of the freezer the next morning, the ice cream had melted into the cracks and acted as a glue, and it was like a whole cake again. By the time I frosted and decorated it, it was almost unnoticeable (until trying to cut it) that it had broken.
This would be just as good (maybe even better) made with banana cake, but my mother requested a plain ol' vanilla cake instead. I went with a pound cake from Allrecipes that seemed light, but not too spongy to hold the ice cream, and said it freezes well. It was a great cake for this purpose, although I should have decreased the temperature and baked it longer to avoid the dark, crispy crust that formed on the outside.
