An important part of our nation's forgotten history. Having just gone to the movies with DH (an engineer and mathematician) to see "Hidden Figures" (awesome), I was inspired to find Freda DeKnight's recipe (as a baker) for the first one mentioned in the KQED article to honor that part of our nation's history that I did not see growing up in sheltered Ohio '40's and '50's and California '60's and elsewhere in US and was not even really aware of until I moved to the South, much to my chagrin.

There are lots of banana cakes with caramel frosting recipes posted on-line though most start with a box of cake mix - I don't think that her original recipe used those chemicals. So here is one that I think is the closest to the original (I do so wish I could find a copy of the cookbook "A Date with a Dish" that Freda published in 1948 but it's offered at $200 used and is so out of my budget).

Banana Cake with Caramel Frosting - Freda DeKnight's respectfully modernized

With an electric mixer cream together: 1/2 C butter, 1 1/2 C sugar, about 3 minutes. Add 2 eggs and beat well. Stir in 3 mashed bananas, 1/4 C buttermilk, 1 t vanilla. Stir in 2 C cake flour and 1/2 t baking soda. Put into a greased and floured 13x9" baking pan and bake 350F 35 minutes. Cool completely.

For frosting melt 1/2 C butter, add 1 C dark brown sugar and cook 2 minutes stirring often until dissolved and bubbly. Off heat stir in 1/2 C heavy cream, 1 T vanilla. With hand mixer beat in until smooth - 2 C powdered sugar. Frost cake and let set 1/2 hour before slicing.

I also found a recipe that added black walnuts which my DH described as Freda's Banana Caramel Cake to the ultimate max.

That's a very interesting article, and also someone I'm not familiar with.

thanks for the cake recipe, Nancy. I just happen to have bananas (over)ripening on the counter and Ashley's favorite cake is banana.

Annie

The movie of Hidden Figures was great, but the book is much, much better.

Very occasionally successful black women did make it into the mainstream media. For instance, in the early 1920s Good Housekeeping ran an article every month on a successful female entrepreneur, and a few of the women they featured were black, such as the woman who developed the first big commercial pie wholesaling empire. (I'm sorry to say I've forgotten her name for the moment.)

For those who don't know (and I sure had no idea) GH began as what we would call a radical feminist publication back before WWI and it was still pushing hard for women's equality in the early and mid-20s. It was pretty startling to read lines like "all men oppress all women" in 1908, particularly in GH, I must say. Almost as startling as the vegetable cooking times, like 45 min for green beans.

However, unfortunately I don't think they were at all concerned about black issues per se, since the same issue that featured the pie empress also had a fiction story with "humorous" black dialog in it. :(