Banana Crumble

Banana Crumble (Hope Cake)

YUM! This recipe is from Something Swanky Desserts and Designs, and let me tell you . . . it is a keeper! On this website she mentions in Bolivia this is called "Hope Cake". I researched that and found absolutely nothing. So i don't know, but left it in the description in case it rings a bell with someone. What I DO know is that this cake is moist, dense, and delicious.
I love crumble, so I doubled the crumble topping ingredients, but I don't think I'll do that next time. And there will be plenty of next times. This cake is wonderful!

Ingredients

For the cake:
3 cups flour
¾ cup butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
3 medium bananas, mashed
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

For the crumble topping:
½ cup chopped nuts
½ cup brown sugar
2 tbs butter
1 tbs flour

For the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease a 9x13 dish.
2. Cream together the butter, cream cheese, bananas, vanilla and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing in between.
3. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda until batter forms. Pour batter into the prepared pan, set aside.

For the crumble topping:

1. Mix together the flour and brown sugar. Cut in the butter until crumbly. Mix in the nuts.
2. Sprinkle the the topping over the cake batter.
3. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

* What I did: 
I used walnuts, but I'll try with pecans next time. I also used vanilla paste instead of extract. Like I mentioned, I doubled the crumble, but that may have been too much.
I filled two mini-loaf pans and a 9 x 9 inch square pan. It took way longer to bake.

Enjoy!