Heavenly Banana Cake with Super Special Cream Cheese Frosting
Update 15 years later after originally writing this post: This moist, flavorful banana cake continues to be one of my best and most requested cake recipes! People ask for it again and again. It is nearing a tie with my carrot cake as my all-time favorite. Here’s the original post…
I tackled my first major baking project since having the baby. Wow… it took a LOT longer to get a simple cake made. Measure and sift the flour… feed the baby. Prepare pans… change the baby. You get my drift.
For people who don’t have a newborn at home, this is an easy cake that is hard to screw up. If you can make banana bread, you can make this cake! And, it is such a crowd pleaser. To tell you the truth, this is one of my top 3 recipes. I have honed it over the years and I must say, it is simply delicious.
A few years ago, I planned to start an organic cake business. I tested and baked cake after cake. One night, I had visions of my first big corporate gift order and endless nights of baking the same cake over and over. Shortly after that, I opened my marketing consulting business instead – no inventory to track, get old or go bad. Coincidentally, baking has remained a passion instead of a nightmare. I do still feel a bit protective of these recipes but I suppose I will share them and some day, should I reignite the cake business dream, you will all share my secrets!
Print Heavenly Banana Cake with Super Special Cream Cheese Frosting
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 12–16 servings 1x
Description
Moist and flavorful, this cake is one of my top recipes, people ask me for it again and again. It’s pretty easy! If you can bake banana bread, you are ready to try this cake.
Ingredients
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cups cake flour, sifted
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 egg + 1 yolk well beaten
- 1 cup ripe bananas, mashed
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- FOR THE Super Special Cream Cheese Frosting
- 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 ounces cream cheese softened
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 Tablespoon pure maple syrup
- 1 Tablespoon sour cream
- 3 to 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- Pecans or walnuts (optional – see assembly)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Sift flour once. Put in a bowl with other dry ingredients and mix them all together with a whisk.
- Cream butter and add sugar gradually until fluffy, 1-2 minutes
- Add eggs and beat well.
- Add mashed bananas and mix until incorporated.
- Add flour to mixture alternately with the buttermilk, in thirds. Beat after each addition until smooth.
- Add vanilla and mix in.
- Bake in 2 greased round cake pans (or line bottom of each pan with parchment). Cakes should bake about 25 minutes. Watch them for light brown top – toothpick should come out of the center clean.
- Cool cakes in pans for 10 minutes then turn onto a rack to cool completely.
- For the Frosting: Beat together butter and cream cheese.
- Mix in next three ingredients. Add sifted powdered sugar little by little until stiff enough to frost cake.
- For Assembly: When cakes are cool, frost between the layers and around the sides.
- Use pecans or walnuts to decorate the top. I either use whole nuts around the outer edge of the cake or I use crushed nuts over the top of the entire cake.
Notes
Cake Flour Substitute: If you find yourself without cake flour, fill the one cup measure with 2 Tbsp corn starch and then fill with regular flour.
This cake lasts for a few days and stays moist. Alternately, you can wrap it in foil and then put it in a freezer bag to store a portion of the cake to enjoy at a later date.
I absolutly love your blog. I love reading what you have to say and I really love your photos. I love the retro touch they all have. I am passing along a little blog award I received today. Its called the Blogging With A Purpose award. You can check my blog if you want to see what I said and go ahead and pass it on if you like. Thanks for the great reads! -Rachel
awesome looking cake…and i don’t even like bananas! also great tip about the cornstarch!
Wow, I think I gained 5 lbs just by looking at this cake. Ya know what, it was worth it.
I will certainly be trying this puppy out. I’m not a big maple syrup fan, but 1 tbsp seems to have a purpose and you seem to be very passionate about this tried and true recipe, so I promise not to fuss with it.
I made it and it is delicious!!!! I had it for breakfast, even! Thank you for sharing the recipe! This was my first banana cake ever, eating or baking. :)
thats one super bad ass bodascious cake! fluffy, dense and dreamy..
banana bread is a favorite at our house. If I add cream cheese frosting, it will put it over the top.
This sounds delicious. Recently, my mother-in-law gave me her secret recipe for a delightful banana cake which has a coconut topping. Needless to say, I think secret recipes are the best–thanks for sharing yours!
My overestimation of household banana consuption combined with the intense desire to use of every scrap of food will insure that this cake will be in my kitchen very soon. So, so tired of banana bread. Even if the cake totally blows will probably become a house standard based on the name alone. Love it!
Thank you for the recipes…Love your banana cake. JOM
I have a little bakery in Maine and we make a similar cake, but if you don’t mind, I will try out your recipe. The tag will reference you of course! Anything with maple syrup in the frosting usually flies away as quickly as it has come out of the oven!
I am so happy to see your post! I have been searching for the perfect cake recipe for my youngest’s birthday! He wants a monkey party , so what could be more fitting than a banana cake! I will likely make cupcakes and I love that you have a tried and true recipe for me! Thanks for sharing, it looks delish!
Yummy! I made your Heavenly Banana Cake last night and it is just that…Heavenly. This recipe is very easy and translates just fine to high altitude baking, in fact I made no adjustment. And per the suggestion of another’s comment, we even had it for breakfast this morning! Delicious. Thank you for sharing this.
Made your Heavenly Banana Cake for dessert tonight…my husband said it was the best cake he’s ever had! Yikes…gotta love that!! :) Kiddos gobbled it up too. Thanks for the recipe that will surely become a staple in our home!
OH Wow! This cake looks really delicious and the frosting sounds like it the best cream cheese frosting ever. I will definetly be baking this cake soon. I will have to take it to work cause I’m the only one in my home that likes banana cake, and while I would love to, I don’t want to eat it by myself. Thank you for sharing.
Hi,
I made this cake this afternoon, had little more than a cup of bananas but it came it wonderfully! It is moist, flavorful and delicious right down to the last crumb!
Thank you for sharing!
I baked this cake for my husband’s birthday and everybody loved it especially my husband he asked me to make it again sometime.
Oh so yummy. I had been dying to try the pumpkin cake, but got sidetracked with the banana cake. This cake is so good. I had enough frosting without doubling to lightly ice the entire cake. My family loved it. I started the meal with a New Mexico style pot roast. The banana cake complimented this meal. It’s a keeper and a repeat!!! Thanks for sharing.
Love your blog! Everything is so delicious! I had a question about the measurements. I’m fairly new to baking, and I was wondering if your suppose to measure the 2 cups of flour by sifting into the measuring cup, or measure by scooping the flour and then sifting. Thanks!
I wanted to try this recipe soooooooo bad – so I actually went out and painstakingly waited for my bananas to ripen. On a particularly stressful day (I tend to stress bake) I decided I was going to make this and my cake turned out horrible! Flat as a pancake and super dense. I was so angry for having wasted ingredients and was going to come on and write a bad review of the recipe but realized I forgot the baking soda. Sigh…
Will try again and hope for a better result next time.
p.s. love your bog
I made the maple pecan banana bread a couple of weeks ago, that was unbelievable. This will be the next one, your recipes are failproof (and very yummy) :)
Oh my heavens. This is a signature dessert. I made it and it was my first time using my 6 year old white kitchenaid stand mixer.
I had that much faith in your recipe that this would warrant me hauling it out and putting it to it’s first cake making. (the photo was really to tempting to refuse)
Blown away.
I love it so much, I told all my Chowhound friends about your site and this dessert.
Thank you fromt the bottom of my heart for sharing.
hi would like to ask if what size of round pans for this to make 2 layers? Thank you and you have wonderful recipes! GOD bless!
8 or 9 inch round pans work!
Oh, my! Heavenly is right. A relative has a secret banana cake too. She makes it in two layers, puts cream cheese frosting in the middle along with very thinly sliced bananas. So delicious! I can’t wait to try your version!
I just made this cake over the weekend because my daughter wanted to make a “birthday” cake (her birthday is in August though..) and it was amazing! The only thing I had a problem with was using the corn syrup/flour substitute for cake flour– do you sift the flour first without the corn syrup? It made the consistancy a little weird but once we tasted it, none of it mattered! When I first tasted the icing I thought it was okay, but the next day the cake/icing tasted 10x better like something magical happened overnight! Everything kind of came together. 4 days later it was still amazing. I’d highly recommend this. And the previous commenter was right– I made this cake at about 5500 ft. altitude and made no adjustments.
It is corn starch, not corn syrup. That is dry like the flour so it will allow you to sift all together.
Best cake I’ve ever made, I was so proud :) so fluffy and moist- everyone loved it and I now have a list of people waiting for me to link them the recipe.
I normally find banana bread much too dense and heavy, this was bananary and perfect. I used 2 whole eggs, instead of the one yolk, which might have made mine, ever so slightly, even lighter.
Plus, no more fear of making frosting icing- just needed a splash of milk to loosen it up a bit (I didn’t add any sour cream). And I had enough to ice the middle, top and all round the sides.
Everyone go make this cake! I certainly will be doing so in the near future.
made this this weekend, and it was sooooo yummy! Thanks for the recipe, your blog is my favorite!
How many inches of round pans do I use for this?
OMG, just made this today and it just as the name says…HEAVENLY!!! Almost like banana bread but lighter and moister, so so good!!!
Made this cake over the weekend. It was so moist and delicious. my family loved it. Wanted to make another one the next day but I was scared that i would eat too much. The cake was just as the title described. HEAVENLY!
I made this twice – the 1st time without a hand mixer, the 2nd with. Without a hand mixer, the cake still tasted great, but it didn’t have a fluffy texture/crumb (I’m a newb lol). The 2nd time, it turned out exactly like the picture. I made muffins with the other half of the batter instead of using a 2nd cake pan, topped them with sweetened coconut flakes, added blueberries, pecans, chocolate and vanilla chips. They turned out delicious, though next time, I’ll be adding more blueberries.