Conquering My Fear of My Kitchen Aid Mixer #1 - Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Upside-Down Cake

Everyone, I have a small kitchen; and there is just not room to get jiggy with it in the kitchen appliance department. I was lucky enough to get a generous gift of a Kitchen Aid mixer as a wedding present. I think I've used it maybe a handful of times. The reason is because it intimidates me. You can kill someone with it 'cause it's so heavy, and there are so many functions for it that it boggles my mind. Give me five buttons and basic instructions, and I'm set.

Now add my fear of my Kitchen Aid mixer to the bewildering activity that is baking. I acknowledge that I am not a baker. I've barely ever baked from scratch. I can figure out how to cook something or follow a new recipe and make changes as necessary while cooking almost anything (case in point: Fred the Turkey). You can't really do that in baking. You THINK you're doing the right thing, and you're really not.

I've decided to try to bake more except I have no idea who's going to be eating any of this since I don't regularly work in an office at the moment (and I can't spare the calories). I can still drop some things off for my office mates when I do go into the office, right? I think someone has already agreed to be a guinea pig for me. Sucker! :)

Here is my nemesis..oops...I mean my mixer:

I'm boring and just went with the basic black. It goes with everything!

Can you see the dust that accumulated on the mixing paddle? Probably not, but there is dust. I use this mixer so much! Not.

I'm not going to show you the steps I took to make this chocolate peanut butter banana upside-dow cake primarily because I didn't take pictures at each step. I mean this post is really to get some sympathy and maybe some encouragement to bake more (also to make fun of myself, which I enjoy). If you are interested in the recipe, here it is.

All of the ingredients laid out. The Pepto-Bismol on the right side of this pic was not supposed to be there. Husband J was emerging from a very bad stomach flu. Luckily, his sickness was not due to my baking.

Mixing sugar and butter. Baking fascinates me. You take these ingredients, and they take on a whole new shape and consistency. Well, duh!

Can you tell by what I decided to take pictures of that I am fascinated by making my own cake mix? I am odd.

Okay, hello! I melted chocolate chips myself ('cause I misread the recipe and got chips instead of regular chocolate)!! Can I get some props for some technique, please? Thanks in advance. :)

After lots of other steps that I didn't document, it was time for this bad boy to go into the oven.

Finally out of the oven and ready to cool, but there is one thing left to do:

This is an upside-down cake, so I've got to flip it. Of course, I choose a totally hard core baking project, but why not aim high?

The banana caramelized pretty nicely, huh? It looks like the picture online!

Well, the cake kinda looked pretty, but it didn't really taste all that great. IT WAS DRY...like the Sahara. Sigh...Once you got past the part with the banana towards the top, it was just not moist. The parts with the banana tasted great with the pieces of chunky peanut butter. I am going to give myself A for effort, but that's it. :)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this, and you laughed (it's okay to laugh at me). For those of you who bake, how did you learn? Trial and error? Where do you get your baking recipes and inspiration?