Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Topping

• Cream the brown sugar and butter. Press in to the bottom of a greased 9" x 13" casserole dish (a deep one).
• Cover with pecans.
• Cover with sliced bananas.

Cake

• In a medium-sized bowl, mix sugar and shortening. Add the eggs and mix in. Set aside.
• In another bowl, mash the bananas and add the buttermilk and vanilla extract. Mix well.
• Finally, in a large bowl, add the cake flour. Alternate adding the banana mixture and the sugar mixture, mixing each time until well blended. The batter will be lumpy, so don't over mix.
• Pour the batter over the sliced banana and brown sugar mixture.
• Place dish on top of a cookie sheet with sides, and covered with tin foil, and place in the oven. The liquid in the cake will rise to the top and if it flows over you won't have as big of a mess to clean up.
• Bake for 1 hour, or until knife or cake tester comes out clean.
• Let cool for about one hour.
• Invert onto a platter. Cut and serve.