At my last job, my seatmate would leave the spottiest bananas on my desk in hopes that I would make this cake.  Another girl might have preferred flowers, but I’ll take overripe fruit over a bouquet any day. 

Banana Cake
(Adapted from Clementine Bakery via the LA Times) 
Makes 1–8" or 9" loaf or 1–8" x 8" cake

1 1/3 c. spelt or pastry flour
2/3-1 c. sugar
½ t. baking powder
¾ t. baking soda
½ t. salt
2 very, very ripe bananas 
1 large egg
¼ c. + 2 TB buttermilk
¼ c. + 2 TB peanut or canola oil
1 t. vanilla extract 
2 TB turbinado sugar for the top

Preheat oven to 350ºF, line loaf or cake pan with parchment paper.  Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.  In another, larger bowl, mash the bananas (I use my whisk to do this.)  Whisk the other wet ingredients in one by one.  Gently whisk the dry into the wet.  

Pour the batter into loaf pan.  Sprinkle the turbinado sugar on top.  Bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out crumby but clean, about 20-30 minutes, depending on which pan you use.  If the crust turns a deep golden brown before the cake is done baking, cover loosely with foil on top.

Notes:
I usually make this cake with pastry flour, but decided to give the spelt a try.  It worked wonderfully.  

I significantly reduced the amount of sugar the original recipe called for.  Really, really ripe bananas and the turbinado sugar on top more than make up for it.  

This cake is good with the cream cheese frosting in the original recipe, but I like it (and just about any other breakfast baked good) better with just a spoonful of mascarpone.