Can you believe it’s Week 4 already? We’re a third of the way through the season! What’s even wilder is that Miami (FL) still hasn’t played a game on Saturday yet. They have their first Saturday game this weekend. I wonder if they’ll be ready to have a semi-normal week.

So tell me: what have you learned this week? Are your hopes and dreams for the season still alive? There’s still plenty of time for things to play out. This week, I’ve got my focus on the SEC.

I’m sorry, NC State fans, but I have to talk about last week again. Just an absolute bonkers finish to give Vanderbilt the win and propel them to a respectable 3-0 on the season. Auburn, on the other hand, was not so lucky. They’re coming into this game looking to bounce back after a loss to Florida.

I usually stick to more savory foods because I’m more of a savory guy than a sweet guy in general. But sometimes you’ve gotta indulge your sweet tooth! 

The Lane Cake is the state cake of Alabama. It was mentioned in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and was also President Jimmy Carter’s favorite cake. He would have it every year at Christmas. I’ve even heard that Carter’s mother-in-law, Francesca “Allie” Smith, had to teach the White House pastry chefs how to make it. With this in mind, I was looking how I could add a little Tennessee flair to an Alabama dessert.

That’s when I stumbled upon the National Banana Pudding Festival. It’s celebrated every year in Centerville, Tennessee. I couldn’t find any sources that would tell me that banana pudding was invented in Tennessee, but this annual festival was enough to convince me I needed to go down that route.

We’re going to make this cake using a reverse creaming method. Normally when I make a cake, I start by creaming the butter and sugar together before adding eggs and other dry ingredients. This time we’re going to mix all the dry ingredients together with softened butter until it’s crumbly like sand and then add the wet ingredients. Doing this serves two purposes: First, it reduces the risk of over-beating the batter; and second, by coating the flour in fat from the butter, it makes it more difficult for gluten proteins to bond.

We’re going to want to preheat our oven to 325F. While it’s warming up, prepare your cake pans. This cake makes four layers, so if you have four 9-inch round pans you’re good to go. Otherwise, we’ll have to bake these in batches. Prepare the pans by spraying them with baking spray mixed with flour. You’re going to want to line the bottoms of the pans with a round of parchment paper too, just to help prevent the cake from sticking.

Pour the egg whites into the stand mixer bowl and beat on medium-low with the whisk attachment for about 1 minute. After the egg whites are good and frothy, increase the speed to medium-high and continue to beat for about 2 minutes more. We’re looking for a good, stiff, cloud of eggs. Gently transfer the egg whites to another bowl and clean the mixer bowl.

Swap the whisk attachment for a paddle and we’re going to mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Turn the mixer to low, and let it run til the ingredients are well combined. We’re then going to add the butter and continue to beat everything until the mixture looks and feels like sand, and no butter is visible. This should take about 5 minutes. Finally add the milk, oil, vanilla, and almond extract before slightly increasing the speed to medium-low until everything is good and smooth.

ITurn off the mixer, and gently fold in the egg whites until there are no streaks in the batter. Spread the batter evenly across the cake pans and bake them for about 20 minutes, until the edges start to pull away from the pan and a toothpick comes clean from the middle of the cake. Let them cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before inverting them onto some wire racks to finish cooling for about an hour.

The traditional Lane Cake filling is a boozy mixture of custard, nuts, and dried fruit. This is where I felt I was able to be the most creative and go for a banana pudding-inspired twist while staying true to the spirit of the cake. Let’s dive in!

Peel the bananas and mash them well. Combine them in a medium saucepan with the egg yolks, sugar, and butter. Whisk it all together to combine and then cook on your stove over medium-low heat. Keep mixing until the mixture reaches 175F and it’s at a nice custard-like texture. It might be a little runnier than a normal custard with the added banana but that’s fine. This should take about 10 minutes total. You want to constantly be whisking this otherwise you’ll have banana-flavored scrambled eggs instead of a banana custard.

Remove from heat and transfer to a clean bowl, and stir in the pecans, banana chips, crushed nilla wafers, bourbon, vanilla, and salt until everything is well combined. Set aside and let it cool for about 45 minutes, until room temperature. Stir occasionally, as needed.

Assemble the cake by placing one layer on a cake server, a large plate, or a waxed cardboard cake round. Top the cake layer with ⅓ of the filling mixture, and then repeat layer by later finishing with cake on top. You’ll have 4 layers of cake and 3 layers of filling when you’re finished. Wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap and store it in the fridge for 8 to 14 hours.

For the frosting on this cake, we’re going to go with a Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

We begin by setting up a double-boiler. I added about 1 inch of water to a small saucepan heated over medium heat until it started to simmer. While that was warming, I combined the egg whites, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar in my stand mixer bowl. I then placed this bowl over the simmering water stirred constantly until the sugar was fully dissolved and my thermometer read 165F. This took about 5-6 minutes.

I put the whisk attachment back on my mixer and beat the sugar and egg mixture on high for about 10 minutes until the meringue was stiff, glossy, and cool to touch. I dropped the speed slightly to medium-high and added the butter 1 tbsp piece at a time until everything was fully incorporated. Increase the speed to high again and beat until the meringue is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and almond and reduce the speed back down to medium until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

Take the cake back out of the fridge and cover the top and sides in the meringue frosting. Let everything sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving.

Wow, this cake certainly is a labor of love. It’s an all-day process! (Though I’ll admit I spread it out over 3 days) So this is something you’ll want to plan ahead to make — it’s not something you can just whip up on a whim. There are probably some shortcuts you could take, though. I’m sure a boxed white cake mix could be fine to reduce a few steps.

While I was eating this, I could definitely taste the banana in the filling. But I’ll admit, it wasn’t quite like banana pudding that I had in my head. I think in that aspect I was trying to stick to the Lane cake style of filling. If I were to make this again, I might just make an actual banana pudding and try to use that as the filling. I bet that’d still make for a satisfying dessert. Maybe crumble some Nilla wafers on the top of the frosting before serving it.

This was still good overall. It’s a satisfying cake with a good balance between rich filling and the light frosting, but not quite what I wanted to achieve. With that in mind, I can only give this one a 3 out of 5 Corns but I have ideas that I can try in the future. That’s part of the fun of this whole project: I get chances to try new things and learn every week.

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