Banana Dulce de Leche Cake

I follow a food blog called My Colombian Recipes, and the other day Erica posted a recipe for Banana-Pecan and Dulce de Leche Upside-Down Cake. I knew I had to try it, and it's taking every ounce of willpower I have not to run upstairs and cut myself a huge slice of it right now! It's so tempting, it smells fantastic, and it's sitting on my counter right now! But I'm trying to bribe friends to come over and help me pull nails and staples out of my new bedroom floor (the new furniture arrives on Saturday! Yippee!) so I'm saving the cake for this evening.

(And yes, if I pull out all the nails and staples myself, I'm going to eat the cake all by myself. Just like the Little Red Hen.)

Anyway, this was a very simple cake to make. You need a jar of dulce de leche, which you can find at Extra Foods/Superstore. (I even found a banana flavoured jar, which was perfect for this recipe!) In Mexico they call it cajeta, and I think I ate my own weight in cajeta when I lived there 10 years ago. (Thank goodness for all the dancing we did on the weekends, or I would never have burned off all the cajeta and tequila I consumed that year!)

I followed Erica's recipe exactly, and it looks amazing. One tip I have for you: I used a springform pan, and before I tightened the spring I put a piece of parchment paper on top of the glass bottom. Then I tightened it up, and the parchment paper hung out the edges. I put the pan on a baking sheet in case it leaked a bit, and it was so easy to flip it over onto a plate afterwards. It worked perfectly, and took about 3 seconds to clean up.

Like I said, I can't wait to dig into this - but first, nails and staples must be removed, and a few beverages must be consumed (with friends, I hope!)