Once upon a time, Sher, over at What Did You Eat? baked an intriguing cupcake called "Hunk of Burning Love". Inspired by Elvis, it was a banana cupcake with a chocolate bar center, covered with peanut butter frosting that she spiked with Cayenne pepper. I bookmarked the recipe right away and returned to it recently. Faced with some bananas that needed to be used at the cafe, and not wanting to make bread pudding in this heat, I made a variation of Sher's creation and came up with this two layer cake that I called the "Elvis".

I have a favorite butter cake recipe that I manipulate on a regular basis by adding this or that. You could even substitute a box cake mix and just add flavorings to suit your needs. There is no shame in using pre-made products. If it saves you time and money and you or your family enjoys it, go for it.

To this basic recipe I added mashed over-ripe bananas and a capful of banana flavoring and all of a sudden I had a rich and moist banana cake with not a lot of extra work.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup butter or shortening
1 cup milk
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 mashed bananas
1/2 tsp banana extract
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips, more for sprinkling on the finished cake

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In a large bowl, cream sugar and shortening until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beating just to combine. finally, stir in vanilla, mashed bananas, and banana extract. Pour batter evenly between two greased 9 inch round cake pans. Sprinkle each cake with 1/3 cup of mini chocolate chips and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Frosting
2 sticks of butter, room temperature
1 cup of smooth peanut butter.
4 cups of powdered sugar
Up to 2 Tbs milk

In an electric mixer cream together the butter and peanut butter until smooth and fully incorporated. Add the powdered sugar a cup at a time and use milk to adjust the consistency to your liking. I left out the "burning" Cayenne pepper from Sher's cupcake recipe because I was making this for A Full Plate and wasn't sure how that would go over with kids and whatnot. But if I ever make this strictly for friend and family consumption, I would definitely add the pepper element to the frosting.

Build your cake and be generous with the frosting, it's delicious so you'll want a lot of it on top and in the middle of the cake.

Sprinkle a few more mini chocolate chips on top and enjoy.

Thanks for the inspiration Sher! And Elvis too, I suppose.