This is, hands down, the BEST banana cake I’ve ever had. It’s soft, moist and rich all at the same time! Once cooled this cake is topped with a totally irresistible lemon cream cheese frosting for a perfect dessert your family will love.
I love a good banana cake, it just reminds me of being a kid because my Grandpa and Grandma made the BEST banana cupcakes. I can still smell them baking in my grandma’s kitchen, waiting impatiently with my sisters.
This cake is reminiscent of my favorite banana cupcakes. It is soft and fluffy and incredibly moist and topped with my favorite ever lemony cream cheese frosting.
As much as I love a fluffy banana cake, I love it even more when it’s topped with an amazing cream cheese frosting! I add in a little bit of lemon zest and lemon juice for extra flavor in my cream cheese frosting but if you prefer, you can leave out the lemon and substitute vanilla.
Regardless of how you top it, once you try this cake, it’ll be your go-to. Every time you have overripe bananas on the counter you’ll want to make this recipe! In fact, I often buy extra bananas to ripen and make this cake!
Tips to ensure a soft moist result:
- Ensure your ingredients are at room temperature (eggs and butter)
- You need the acidity from the lemon juice (& milk) mixture. Subbing in just milk or cream won’t work. (You can use buttermilk in its place if needed).
- When mixing your butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla, beat the mixture until VERY fluffy, almost the consistency of a fluffy buttercream frosting. This should take about 5 minutes.
- When adding the flour mixture you want to mix until just combined. Over-mixing will cause a dense chewy result.
- The cooking time on this cake can vary! Check your cake at 55 minutes, if it isn’t ready, continue cooking until a toothpick comes out clean (this can be up to an additional 20 minutes depending on your oven). The result will be a moist and irresistible banana cake.
Happy Baking!
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups milk
- 2 ½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice divided
- 1 ⅓ cups mashed bananas about 4 medium bananas
- ⅔ cup unsalted butter softened
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Frosting
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- ⅓ cup butter softened
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice or vanilla extract
- 1 ½ teaspoons lemon zest from 1 lemon, optional
- 3-3 ½ cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan.
- Place 1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice in a measuring cup. Top to 1 ½ cups with milk. Set aside.
- Mix together mashed banana with 1 tablespoon lemon juice, set aside.
- Beat together butter, brown and white sugar until combined. Add in eggs one at a time and vanilla. Mix on high until light and fluffy (almost the texture of frosting).
- Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Alternate adding flour mixture and milk to egg mixture stirring just until combined. (Do not overmix). Fold in bananas. Pour into prepared pan.
- Put into the oven and reduce heat to 300°F. Bake 60 – 70 minutes (see note below) or just until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (do not over bake).
- Remove from oven and place in the freezer for 45 minutes to make the cake extra moist. Cool completely before frosting.
FROSTING
- Cream together butter & cream cheese until fluffy. Add in lemon zest and juice.
- Add powdered sugar a little at a time until you reach desired consistency. Spread over cooled cake.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
This recipe has been retested and updated 11/20/16.
Very slightly adapted from food.com
Al of yourrecipes look wonderful. Do you have a cookbook? It woul be a Best Seller!
Aww, thank you June! I don’t have a cookbook as of yet.
I’m so excited to announce that my cookbook Everday Comfort is available for purchase! Thank you so much for your support ♥️
I was wondering if the butter needed to be unsalted?
I use unsalted butter.
It looks and sounds amazing but I have to admit I’m not a fan of lemon. Can I substitute something for the lemon in the cake?
You can replace the soured milk with buttermilk. As for the lemon in the frosting, you can eliminate the lemon zest and juice and replace it with vanilla for a vanilla cream cheese frosting.
How many bananas will I need to make up 1 1/3 cups mashed, using medium sized bananas?
About 3-4 bananas (depending on size).
Well I wouldn’t make this cake again despite having four bananas in it…it hardly tasted like banana and the frosting is good but very sweet I actually only ended up putting a thin layer of the frosting.
It’s a dense cake not fluffy.
I’ll take my grandma Lois’ banana bread recipe any day and if I want a cake I’ll frost it!
You need to use over ripe bananas to get the banana flavor. Fresh bananas mostly taste starchy and maybe that’s why you couldn’t taste it. She also mentioned in the instructions to not over mix because then the cake will be dense and chewy.
About how many cups of mashed bananas does this recipe call for? I freeze bananas sliced up for easy storage, so I don’t know how many slices equal a small banana. Lol.
You would need about 1 ⅓ cup mashed banana.
just got this recipe and can’t wait to cheat and make it. when I use bananas I always use a little lemon or orange juice on them (just a little) so they don’t turn brown, Is that ok??
Hi Pat, I do the same trick to keep my bananas fresh! Yes, a squirt of citrus fruit juice will be fine! I hope you enjoy the recipe!
My icing is lumpy with brown sugarish bumps?? I have never made an icing like this before is this normal?
The icing should be smooth without lumps. Was your brown sugar fresh?
Question on frosting: I “removed from heat” the milk, butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar and let cool. Upon my return to stir in remaining powdered sugar, the contents were hard as a rock! What did I do wrong? Thanks! : )
I can’t say for sure as I’ve made this frosting several times and haven’t had that problem.
Thank you for this lovely recipe. I preheated fan oven to 350 then turned down as instructed. Mine was done at 40 minutes in a 10″ square pan, using buttermilk (that needed to be used up) rather than sour milk. Haven’t tasted yet, but it smells divine while it’s cooling!
Is just half teaspoon of baking soda enough raising agent for the cake or is there a need to add baking powder as well?
There is no baking powder in this recipe and the cake rises perfectly for me.
This cake looks amazing. I know what I’m doing tomorrow morning. I’m making this cake for sure!
I made this banana cake for my friends at a food pantry where I volunteer. I was desperate for a new recipe for bananas and found this one. My only problem was that I was in a hurry and only read the part about preheating the oven to 350. I thought one hour was too long to bake a cake but set my timer for 60 minutes, put my cake in the oven and went outside to do some weeding. After about 40 minutes I went back inside, smelled the cake and thought I’d better check. It was beautiful and perfectly baked. THEN I read the entire instructions and saw that I was supposed to turn the oven down . Duh…. I was worried that it would be dry but it was moist and perfect the next morning. Super delicious and one that I will make over and over. Thank you for this gem.
So glad you loved it and that it worked out great for you!
You made my day. I am usually a stickler for thoroughly reading recipes before I make them. First, I put the batter in the pan and realized I forgot to put the bananas in. Then, I put the cake in at 350 and let it bake for 25 minutes before I saw you were supposed to reduce the temperature. Do, I baked it for a total of 45 minutes. I am bringing it to church in the morning. I feel better.
Holly, would a bundt pan work with this yummy sounding recipe?
I haven’t tried it in a bundt pan so I can’t say for sure if that would work. If you do try it, please let us know how it works out for you.
I tried it in a Bundt Pan this morning and it came out awesome! Here’s the thing….I also cooked the cake gluten free using Gluten Free All Purpose Flour Mix. I doubled the Baking Soda that your recipe called for because gluten free items tend to not rise as much. I can say that was successful because the cake rose to the top of the pan. It’s BEAUTIFUL! The frosting went on runny, which is perfect for Bundt Cakes. Now my kids and I have had one small slice as a reward and the rest is waiting until after dinner tonight–more motivation for them to do their schoolwork and chores! :)
I forgot to add that I did also need to let it bake for an additional 10 minutes in the Bundt Pan.
Oh that sounds wonderful! Thank you for sharing your gluten free tips, I know there are always readers who are looking for gluten free recipes! Enjoy your cake!
I love the idea of making this gluten free, however the link for the GF flour recipe you shared is only available if you have an annual membership to that website
Thank you so much for sharing, this cake was a big hit yummy !!! and so easy too!
What is powdered sugar, I am from Australia
Confectioners’ sugar or icing sugar.
Can nuts be added to this meaning will it work out the same way
I think it would work but I haven’t tried it that way. It’s a good idea to toss the nuts with flour first to keep them from sinking to the bottom. If you do try it, please let us know how it works for you!
Ok im confused on the frosting, I have made it up to the point before adding remaining powdered sugar (its cooling) and cream cheese. The description says you should be able to pour it on the cake but as it is right now its so thick it could stand up…and thats before adding more powdered sugar. Is the cream cheese going to make it that pourable..???
Once added to the cream cheese the frosting consistency will thin out and you should be able to pour it over the cake.
If you are finding the brown sugar mixture too thick to mix in the remaining powdered sugar, you can mix the powdered sugar directly with the cream cheese (and then add the brown sugar mixture). Hopefully that helps!
it was too hard to even scrape with a spoon..it cooled to a crust lol. I reheated it and added a little more milk. Also might want to add that cream cheese should be room temperature (which I tried to get mine too) as its hard to get it completely incorporated into something thats cooled.
Hmm… did you only boil it for one minute? I’ve added in room temperature to the post, thank you for the great tip! Hopefully it tasted delicious! :)
LOL ! I made this cake yesterday ( very good), but I had the exact same thing happen with that part of the frosting instructions , so I just went with the cream cheese & powdered sugar, and spread it on the cake.
My icing seems rather runny. Does it firm up in the fridge?
It’s not thick and spreadable, you can pour it onto the cake but once you pop it into the fridge for a few minutes, it is perfect (although still softer than a traditional frosting)!
If you prefer a thicker frosting, you can add in an additional ⅓ cup butter and 1½ – 2 cups powdered sugar.
Can we add walnuts to this I want to try to make it today