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!
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.
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!).
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.
Enjoy!
How to Make the BEST Banana Cake
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)
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
Nutrition
Magee
Can I put chocolate chips? Please let me know
Sam
Hi Magee! That will work just fine. I would just stir them in briefly at the end. 🙂
Jennifer
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!
Sam
Hi Jennifer! You could use pecans if you’d like or you can just leave them off. 🙂
Larry
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.
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it, Larry! 🙂
Hamida Musa
Pls how much white sugar can you add if you can’t get brown sugar??
Sam
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. 🙂
Jess
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!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Jess! 🙂
Samantha
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!
Sugar Spun Run
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! 🙂
Samantha
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
That is so awesome! I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it so much. Sounds like mom will be asking for another one soon. 😂 🙂
Janet Pohl
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.
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that everyone enjoyed it, Janet! Thanks for using my recipe for such a special occasion. 🙂
Jane
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!
Sam
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.
Sash
Can I make cupcakes with this recipe ?
Sam
That should work here. The cupcakes may not bake up very tall but they should definitely still turn out. 🙂
Jonie
I really love this recipe. Is it sturdy enough to make it as a layer cake?
Sam
Hi Jonie! It should hold up pretty well for you. 🙂
SandyH
Is there no brown sugar in the frosting?
Sam
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. 🙂