Some meal planning begins with dessert.

Byline: Home cooking by Jim Boyd The Register-Guard

PATTY LEHNERT of Eugene considers "sweets" to be her cooking specialty because she likes desserts, breakfast scones and muffins.

"I like cooking," she said, "but whenever I make a nice meal, I always know what the dessert is and then I have to fill in from the start. OK, what are we going to eat before we eat dessert?

Today, she offers her recipe for Banana Cake With Milk Chocolate Frosting.

She is married to Alex Lehnert, the caretaker at Camp Harlow, and they have three daughters: Geneva, 6; Claire, 4; and Gabrielle, 2.

How she began cooking: "I always enjoyed it," Lehnert said. "I remember sitting on the counter next to my mom, running the speeds of the KitchenAid, being able to turn the KitchenAid on and off and raise and lower the bowl, and helping her with whatever she was making.

"And whenever I was was at someone's house and liked what they made, I'd ask them for the recipe - as a little kid! My mom has saved some of those recipes that I've written in, you know, funny spellings and little kid handwriting when I was 6 and 7 years old.

"And then when I was 9, my parents got divorced and my mom opened her own bank account," she said, explaining that the bank offered merchandise as a premium for new depositors.

"My mom let me choose whatever premium, because it was kind of a bunch of junky stuff," Lehnert said. "But one of the choices was a little kitchen set - a grown-up version, but there was a little hand mixer and bowls and measuring spoons. I got to pick it. That was mine. And she gave me a little area in the kitchen that was just mine.

"And then I was unstoppable. I had all my stuff, and I would make my grocery lists and she would oblige me and get the ingredients I needed."

Lehnert recalls, "On special occasions, we would go out for meals, and my mom would say, "Well, ..." I think she encouraged my dessert love. I always loved them, but she would say, "Well, you might get pretty full on dinner. I wonder if we should start with dessert this time." And so sometimes I would get to order dessert first off the menu, and then if I had room, I could eat dinner."

Her biggest cooking success: "One big thing I pulled off: I had made a commitment to our church to provide desserts for a group of 400 several months in advance and then, in the meantime, I got pregnant," she said. "And just before I was supposed to be doing the desserts, I was very morning sick - evening sick, actually. It was a dessert theater, dinner-theater thing.

"I was scatterbrained and horribly nauseous and I had 400 desserts to make - and I did it!

"I couldn't taste anything at all - I would definitely lose it if I tasted anything I made. So I was just cooking by faith, and they all came out."

Her biggest cooking failure: This also ties in with her first pregnancy.

"We had invited a couple over for dinner and had to cancel because I went into labor," Lehnert said. "So then, after she was born and we got our feet under us, we wanted to have them over for a nice dinner and dessert. And so I really tried to go all out.

"I was trying a new recipe. It was a meringue tort, and something went wrong with the (meringue) crust."

The problem, she said, was that the meringue would compress when she tried to scoop the tarts up with a spatula. "And then it was just a glob of meringue stuck on the spatula," she said. "We couldn't even get it off.

"I always have a six-pack of Henry Weinhard's root beer in the pantry and some ice cream in the freezer, so we ended up having root beer floats instead."

Her favorite cookbook: "The Fannie Farmer Baking Book," an update by Marion Cunningham of Fannie Merritt Farmer's original, is Lehnert's main standby cookbook.

Why this recipe was chosen: Lehnert chose this cake recipe "because it's my husband's very favorite."

Banana Cake With

Milk Chocolate Frosting

For the cake layers:

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup buttermilk 

For the frosting:

1 1/4 cup cream

1/4 cup light corn syrup 

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 pound milk chocolate

2 ripe bananas, sliced

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.

Cream butter. Add sugar and then eggs.

In small bowl, combine mashed bananas, vanilla and buttermilk.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in 2 parts, alternating with the banana mixture. Mix batter until smooth.

Bake in 2 greased 9-inch rounds at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Cool cake layers on racks.

To prepare the frosting, combine cream, corn syrup and butter in a heavy, large saucepan. Whisk over medium heat until mixture begins to simmer.

Add chocolate. Reduce heat to low and whisk until frosting is smooth, about 1 minute.

Chill for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Using electric mixer, beat until soft peaks form, about 2 minutes.

To assemble the cake, place one layer on plate. Spread 1 1/2 cups frosting to edges. Place sliced bananas, overlapping, to cover frosting.

Top with second cake layer. Spread top and sides with remaining frosting.

Reserve some frosting to pipe on designs with a pastry bag and tips for a fancier touch (optional).

Garnish with additional bananas.

To nominate a cook for this feature, mail it to Home Cooking, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440; contact Jim Boyd at 338-2363; or e-mail [e-mail]. Include the nominee's name and phone number as well as your name and phone number.