• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Recipes
  • About Me
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • Youtube
Sugar Spun Run
  • All Recipes
  • Desserts
    • Cookies
    • Candy
    • Bars & Brownies
    • Cake
    • Pies
  • Pastries
  • Breads
  • Savory
  • Breakfast
    • Muffins
    • Scones
  • Seasonal
    • Cozy Winter / Holiday Treats
    • Easter / Spring
    • Fall Recipes
    • Summer Recipes
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Home
  • About Me
  • All Recipes
  • Contact/Work with Me
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • Youtube
  • ×
    You are here: Home / Desserts / Cake / The Best Banana Cake

    The Best Banana Cake

    March 12, 2018 By Sam 184 Comments

    This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Please read my disclosure policy.
    Jump to Recipe Print Recipe
    The Best banana Cake

    This is my all-time favorite banana cake recipe, made completely from scratch! Perfectly flavored with extra bananas, soft, fluffy, moist, and topped off with a silky smooth cream cheese frosting and chopped walnuts, this is the banana cake of your dreams!

    A slice of banana cake on a plate

    This recipe is a result of many, many emails and comments from so many of you writing to tell me how much you enjoyed my best banana muffins (see, I didn’t call them the “best” for nothing).  A few of you wrote to ask me if it would be possible to bake the muffin recipe into a banana cake, but I had a few reservations.  I was worried that the original recipe wouldn’t make the best banana cake, and so I started recipe testing to develop the perfect moist cake.

    I went through a lot of overripe bananas (and some not-so-ripe ones, in a few moments of desperation), and finally ended up modifying my pumpkin cake (of all things) to land on this winning banana cake recipe.

    Banana cake - frosted and sprinkled with chopped nuts - in baking dish with slice missing

    Soft and fluffy with a tender, moist crumb, this is banana cake perfection.  It’s easy to make and is perfectly complemented by a liberal topping of cream cheese frosting.

    For this banana cake, I used a variation of my favorite cream cheese frosting that I shared the other day.  Today’s recipe uses a bit less sugar and has you whip heavy cream into the frosting so that it’s smooth and silky.

    This variation is much less sturdy than my other recipe and isn’t one that I recommend for your standard cake or cupcake, but it suits this cake perfectly (no piping required here!).

    Covering a banana cake with cream cheese frosting

    Free E-Book

    Treat yourself to a FREE E-BOOK!


    Tips for Making Banana Cake

    • The riper your bananas the better!  I prefer mine to be mostly brown (which I did not have when I made the video below… food blogger fail), the riper they are the more flavorful your banana cake will be.
    • I top the frosting off with chopped walnuts, but if you’d like you can also bake walnuts or pecans into the cake, too.  About 1 cup of chopped nuts would work nicely in this recipe.
    • You can add cinnamon to spice up this cake!  I ultimately decided to leave it out for maximum pure banana flavor, but you can add ½-3/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon in with the dry ingredients if you’d like.
    • When I made this banana cake in my glass baking dish, the top browned faster than I expected it to. Because of this, I’ve included instructions in the recipe to monitor your cake at the 30 minute mark, and if the edges are browning too fast, lightly tent the cake with foil.

    A slice of banana cake on a white plate

    Enjoy!

    How to Make the BEST Banana Cake


    Slice of banana cake with frosting and chopped nuts

    The Absolute Best Banana Cake

    No ratings yet
    Print Pin Rate
    Course: Cake, Dessert
    Cuisine: American
    Prep Time: 25 minutes
    Cook Time: 45 minutes
    Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
    Servings: 24 slices
    Calories: 350kcal
    Author: Sam Merritt

    Ingredients

    • ¾ cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature (170g)
    • ¾ cup canola or vegetable oil (175ml)
    • 1 cup light or dark brown sugar (200g)
    • ½ cup sugar (100g)
    • 4 ripe bananas, peeled and well-mashed (this is about 2 cups mashed) (470g)
    • 2 large eggs lightly beaten room temperature preferred
    • ¼ cup buttermilk (60ml)
    • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
    • 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour (312g)
    • 1 teaspoons baking soda
    • 1 teaspoons baking powder
    • 1 teaspoon salt

    Silky Cream Cheese Frosting:

    • 8 oz cream cheese softened (225g)
    • ½ cup unsalted butter softened (113g)
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • ½ teaspoon salt
    • 2 ½ cups powdered sugar (315g)
    • 1 Tablespoons heavy cream
    • ½ cup chopped walnuts for topping (optional)
    Prevent your screen from going dark

    Instructions

    • Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and spray a 9x13 pan with baking spray or lightly grease and flour.  Set aside.
    • Combine butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl and use an electric mixer). Beat until well-combined and light and fluffy.
    • Add oil and beat to combine.  
    • Stir in mashed bananas.
    • Add eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla extract and stir until well-combined.
    • In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
    • Gradually add to wet ingredients until completely combined.  
    • Spread batter into prepared pan and bake on 350F (175C) for 45-55 minutes* or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean with few moist crumbs.  Allow to cool completely before covering with frosting.

    Silky Cream Cheese Frosting

    • Combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract, and salt in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until creamy.
    • With mixer on low-speed, gradually add powdered sugar until completely combined.
    • Add heavy cream and gradually increase speed to high.  Beat on high for 30 seconds.  
    • Spread over completely cooled banana cake.  Top with chopped walnuts (if using).  Slice and serve!

    Notes

    *Important -- keep an eye on your banana cake as it bakes.  30 minutes in, check your cake to see if it's becoming too brown on top (pay attention to the edges, if they're getting darker in color and pulling away from the edges), if so you may lightly tent with foil before baking the remaining 15 minutes.  I had this issue when baking in a glass dish but not in a metal one (which was the opposite of what I expected).  

    Nutrition

    Serving: 1slice | Calories: 350kcal | Carbohydrates: 37g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 14g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 51mg | Sodium: 234mg | Potassium: 80mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 26g | Vitamin A: 456IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 37mg | Iron: 1mg
    Tried this recipe? Show me on Instagram!Mention @SugarSpun_Sam or tag #sugarspunrun!

     Slice of Banana Cake
    Previous Post: « Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
    Next Post: 7 Layer Bars »

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Magee

      March 26, 2021 at 1:37 pm

      Can I put chocolate chips? Please let me know

      Reply
      • Sam

        March 26, 2021 at 9:09 pm

        Hi Magee! That will work just fine. I would just stir them in briefly at the end. 🙂

        Reply
    2. Jennifer

      February 27, 2021 at 6:54 pm

      Hi Sam! I really want to make this but I don’t like walnuts. Do you think pecans would be ok? Or would I be better off just leaving the nuts out? Thank you!

      Reply
      • Sam

        February 28, 2021 at 10:05 pm

        Hi Jennifer! You could use pecans if you’d like or you can just leave them off. 🙂

        Reply
    3. Larry

      January 27, 2021 at 7:48 pm

      Made this tonight. I added raisins. We can’t have nuts so I added red sprinkles to the top. Very tasty. thanks for the recipe.

      Reply
      • Sam

        January 27, 2021 at 9:35 pm

        I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it, Larry! 🙂

        Reply
        • Hamida Musa

          April 03, 2021 at 4:06 am

          Pls how much white sugar can you add if you can’t get brown sugar??

        • Sam

          April 03, 2021 at 10:58 am

          Hi Hamida! You can use the same amount of granulated sugar. The cake won’t be quite as moist and flavorful. I do have an article on how to make brown sugar you could check out. 🙂

    4. Jess

      December 12, 2020 at 5:57 pm

      5 stars
      I love this cake recipe so much! I have made it twice and I make it into a cute little layered cake with the naked frosting look and it turns out so so cute and delicious!

      Reply
      • Sam

        December 12, 2020 at 9:14 pm

        I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Jess! 🙂

        Reply
    5. Samantha

      November 14, 2020 at 12:35 pm

      Hi Sam, your blog is definitely one of the best baking blogs out there and I am honestly so grateful to have stumbled upon it! I am planning to bake this banana cake as a layer cake and fill it with pastry cream for my mom’s birthday. Which frosting do you think will go well with that combination? Thank you so much!

      Reply
      • Sugar Spun Run

        November 14, 2020 at 1:30 pm

        Happy (early) Birthday to your mom, Samantha! If you are planning to create a banana cake, with a pastry cream center, I would reccomend either the cream cheese frosting, vanilla buttercream, or chocolate cream cheese frosting. One of those options would work nicely. I hope that your mother enjoys her cake. Keep me posted on how it turns out! 🙂

        Reply
        • Samantha

          February 24, 2021 at 10:44 pm

          5 stars
          Tasted soo delicious! My mom ate half of the cake in one day, its now her favorite😄!
          The chocolate cream cheese frosting, pastry cream, and this amazing banana cake went together so well! Thanks for all of the awesome recipes, Sam!

        • Sam

          February 25, 2021 at 9:18 am

          That is so awesome! I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it so much. Sounds like mom will be asking for another one soon. 😂 🙂

    6. Janet Pohl

      November 08, 2020 at 6:08 pm

      The best banana cake I ever ate! The frosting is very special, too, and suits the cake perfectly. I made this for a birthday cake and we all loved it. Thank you so much for this recipe.

      Reply
      • Sugar Spun Run

        November 08, 2020 at 8:41 pm

        I am so glad that everyone enjoyed it, Janet! Thanks for using my recipe for such a special occasion. 🙂

        Reply
    7. Jane

      October 03, 2020 at 1:33 pm

      Is there any other type of glaze or frosting that you would recomend with this cake? I want to make this for my mom but she’s not a big fan of sugar so if there was anything that isn’t as sweet but taste good with this cake I would love to try it out. Thanks!

      Reply
      • Sam

        October 03, 2020 at 10:24 pm

        Hi Jane! You could use the glaze that I use in my bundt cake but I honestly like the cream cheese frosting here because I don’t think it’s overly sweet.

        Reply
    8. Sash

      August 24, 2020 at 2:35 pm

      Can I make cupcakes with this recipe ?

      Reply
      • Sam

        August 25, 2020 at 9:59 pm

        That should work here. The cupcakes may not bake up very tall but they should definitely still turn out. 🙂

        Reply
    9. Jonie

      August 15, 2020 at 7:48 am

      5 stars
      I really love this recipe. Is it sturdy enough to make it as a layer cake?

      Reply
      • Sam

        August 15, 2020 at 12:32 pm

        Hi Jonie! It should hold up pretty well for you. 🙂

        Reply
    10. SandyH

      July 16, 2020 at 2:49 pm

      Is there no brown sugar in the frosting?

      Reply
      • Sam

        July 17, 2020 at 4:21 pm

        You may be remembering my brown sugar frosted banana cake, but I have since removed that recipe as this one is much much better. If you want a brown sugar frosting you can use the frosting from my pumpkin cupcakes. 🙂

        Reply
    « Older Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Primary Sidebar

    The author (Sam) in blue shirt holding donut Hi, I'm Sam! I'm dedicated to bringing you sweet, simple, and from-scratch dessert recipes. My life may or may not be controlled by my sweet tooth. Send help (or chocolate). Read more about me.

    Most Popular

    flaky biscuit on white cloth

    Easy Homemade Biscuits

    Pizza dough in glass bowl, after rising

    The Best Pizza Dough Recipe

    Slice of yellow cake with chocolate icing on white plate

    The Best Vanilla Cake Recipe

    stack of 5 chocolate chip cookies

    The WORST Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Spring Recipes!

    Deviled eggs

    Million Dollar Deviled Eggs

    Carrot cake slice

    The Best Carrot Cake Recipe (with Video)

    Carrot cake cupcake with white frosting on a plate

    Carrot Cake Cupcakes

    pink strawberry cake on white plate

    Strawberry Cake

    Slice of hummingbird cake on a plate

    Hummingbird Cake

    Easter egg candy

    Old Fashioned Easter Egg Candy

    NEVER MISS A RECIPE!

    Subscribe and receive a
    FREE E-BOOK

    places sugar spun run has been featured (Women's Day, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Country Living, the huffington post, People, Delish, MSN, TLC, Parade, Better Homes & Gardens, Buzzfeed)
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • Youtube

    Privacy Policy|Accessibility Statement

    Footer

    ↑ back to top

    ABOUT

    • About Me
    • Policies, Disclosure & Privacy
    • Terms of Use

    CONTACT

    • Contact
    • Work with Me!

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • Youtube

    © 2020 Sugar Spun Run. All Rights Reserved

    Subscribe To My Newsletter!