banana flavored birthday cake with banana icing decoration

I’m still riffing on the “inspiration comes from odd places” theme of my last blog post and want to share with you an unusual inspiration sequence I had last week. If you followed my Instagram, you might have noticed that I baked myself a birthday cake. On the morning of my birthday, I realized that if I wanted to have a decent not-cheap-store-bought-at-the-last-minute cake, I was on my own. Nobody was slaving away in the kitchen on my behalf. Fortunately, I enjoy baking and decorating a cake every once in a while, and so off I went to fetch supplies.

What kind of cake should I make? That was a no-brainer – banana. My mom’s banana cake recipe is my all-time favorite and the flavor she made for me every summer as a kid. That cake is moist and packed with banana flavor and becomes even more melt-in-your-mouth sumptuous after it sits on the counter for a day or two. Happily, I found some bananas at the grocery store that were ripe enough to proceed with the plan. Soon, I had two nice round cake layers baking in the oven.

How should I decorate it? If I’m making it for myself, then it has to be better than average, it has to be outstanding. I’m not going to put all of that work into making an average blah blah cake. I want a masterpiece! I’m far from a professional cake decorator, completely self-taught, but I have painting skills I can tap into for ideas. So here’s where things turned a little strange. I recently rediscovered a painting that I abandoned and forgot about several years ago when I was first learning how to paint with acrylic paints. It’s a painting I affectionately named “Banana Cream Pie.”

The Painting

Acrylic Painting Titled “Banana Cream Pie” – a work in progress

This painting was one of the early intuitive paintings I created after taking an online class with Flora Bowley. I set it aside after it seemed like it was nearly complete but still missing something. I simply didn’t know how to add that “something” that it still needed and was stumped. Upon finding it buried in a stack of old canvases, I resolved to do the right thing and finish it this year.

The Pie

Banana Cream Pie

The inspiration for the painting was a banana cream pie, no kidding! I started the painting right after I’d made an unusually good banana cream pie for my family. If you’ve never made a banana cream pie from scratch, you should know that it’s a major undertaking. My masterpiece pie had everything you hope for in a good banana cream pie: a moist flaky crust with just the right crumble; a custard that wasn’t too runny and wasn’t too stiff, “ahhh, this custard is just right,” Golidlocks might have said before she ate it all up; and finally, even the meringue shined with perfectly browned firm peaks of foamy fabulousness. I was so thrilled to have actually succeeded that I documented that joyful feeling with a painting.

The Cake

Back to the birthday cake situation, as I contemplated the possibilities, the banana slices I’d painted on that canvas long ago popped back into my head and I knew I had to paint banana slices onto the banana cake.

Banana Birthday Cake side view with banana slices

Inspiration Sequence

So now we put the pieces together and you have the full sequence: pie inspired painting inspired cake.

inspiration sequence for banana cake decoration: pie inspired painting inspired cake

Overall, I felt like it turned out pretty well. It tasted good, too, and I enjoyed one of the best birthday cakes I’ve ever had. Yay!

A few more photos:

Begin decorating banana birthday cake with Tucker as official supervisor cat

mostly decorated banana birthday cake

Finished banana birthday cake

Julie with Birthday Cake