Last week we had a full house of 560 for our chicken dinner. We served 1000 pieces of chicken from Pizza Ranch, and we’re sorry if anyone had to wait a little for the chicken to arrive. We were amazed at how fast they were able to cook up an extra hundred pieces and get it delivered before the end of dinner service. Here are a few snaps from the dining room on Wednesday night:
Salad bar ingredients, prepped and ready.
Kids love drumsticks and baby carrots.
The salad bar looks great tonight.
It’s drumsticks for Larry!
Volunteer servers are always appreciated. Sign up at the welcome table if you want a turn.
Fresh homemade banana cake with cream cheese frosting.
Ready for action. 4 serving lines loaded and ready to go
We love these cheerful faces!
An easy night for the cooks with Pizza Ranch cooking our main dish tonight.
Broccoli salad for a crowd
Chicken ranch, it tastes so good
Kitchen helpers love selfies.
Music teachers and Mitch get an early start on dinner.
Our awesome piano accompanist and dinner buddy enjoy their chicken before the crowd gets here.
This week we’ll be having an Italian Dinner of rotini pasta with spaghetti sauce and meatballs, caesar salad bar, fruit salad, garlic knot rolls, and homemade cookies for dessert.
Dinner starts at 4:45 pm and ends at 6:15 pm. Worship begins at 6:30, with a special presentation of Bibles to our 3rd graders in the Milestone Celebration. We hope you can join us to celebrate with them and their families.
BANANA CAKE for a Crowd with Cream Cheese Frosting
Here’s the recipe for the banana cake we made this week. This recipe makes 5 9×13 size cakes, cut into 24 pieces per cake. We made the recipe 5 times for a total of 600 pieces of cake, using 12 1/2 pans (12x20x2 inch size plus 1 9×13 pan).
16 1/4 cups flour
2 1/2 Tablespoons baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 pound plus 14 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
10 cups sugar
15 large eggs
10 cups mashed ripe bananas
3 Tablespoons vanilla
7 1/2 cups buttermilk
Preheat oven to 350*. Grease bottom and sides of cake pans.
Sift or whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl.
In large mixer bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add sugar, beat until smooth.
Add eggs, mix well, then add in bananas and vanilla. Mix until combined.
Add half the flour mixture, beating on low just until incorporated, about 1 minute. Add buttermilk, beat about 15 seconds. Add remaining flour, beat just until combined, scraping bottom as needed.
Pour cake into cake pans. Batter should be about halfway up sides of pans.
Bake for 40-45 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking.
Cool cakes completely before frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting for 12 1/2 cakes (12x20x2 inch). We divided this into 2 batches in our large Berkel mixer.
5 pounds butter, softened
10 pounds cream cheese, softened
7 Tablespoons vanilla
18 pounds powdered sugar
Beat together butter and cream cheese until well blended. Beat in vanilla, then slowly add powdered sugar, blending well after each addition.
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