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!
The Best Banana Cake
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups milk
- 2 ½ tablespoons lemon juice divided
- 1 ⅓ cup mashed bananas
- ⅔ cup butter softened
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 cup white sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoons vanilla
- 3 cups flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
FROSTING
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- ⅓ cup butter softened
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 ½ teaspoons lemon zest from 1 lemon
- 3-3 ½ cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. 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.
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This recipe has been retested and updated 11/20/16.
Very slightly adapted from food.com
Best banana cake I have ever made :) Do you store in refrigerator?
I usually store it in the refrigerator and try to leave it at room temp at least 30 min before serving. I am so glad you loved it Elizabeth!
Can you make this cake without lemon? Not a fan of lemon. Thank you
The lemon in the cake itself is needed to help it rise, you can leave it out of the frosting though! Although you can’t taste it, if you don’t want to use lemon, you can replace it with white vinegar.
Very nice recipe chef, moist simply delicious . Thank you for your effort
how much of the ingredients would I need for an 8×8 pan?
I haven’t tried this cake in an 8×8 pan but I wold think half of the batter would work. Baking time would need to be adjusted.
Hi Holly!
Made your banana cake recipe and it turned out great, so moist and the lemon juice really highlighted the banana! I added extra lemon juice to the icing. Thanks so much x
Nicole
Sydney, Australia
It is the best. Should be rated a 5! I’ve used it over and over again. ALWAYS a favorite and ALWAYS gone!
Everyone ends up with over ripe bananas! This recipe is my go too, for rescuing my nanas and satisfying a family.
Recipe does use a lot of dishes, but that’s what we buy them for right? But we’ll worth it and fairly easy. Also it takes ingredients I usually always have on hand, when my bananas get over ripe. I used to always dread getting a bundle of bananas that is to big for my family. I’m thankful for this recipe and share it and use it quite often.
How many bananas (roughly) would equal 1 1/3 cup? I know they come in all sizes, but usually how many do you use?
Approximately 4 bananas. Enjoy Brian!
Is flour all purpose,or self rising
For this recipe, we use all-purpose flour.
Great banana cake. Easy and delicious
Thank you for putting in the nutritional information. We can have anything as long as we can figure in where we want to spend the calories…and you stuff is AMAZING!!
How do I use this BEST BANANA CAKE recipe to make 12 LARGE cupcakes?
The cake was so delicious and so large I needed to share with my daughter. She did not complain!
I haven’t made this into cupcakes so I can’t say for sure, but many readers have. I think this recipe would make closer to around 24 cupcakes would suggest filling your cupcake liners ⅔ full and baking for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. You could try reducing the recipe, but I have not tried it. You could also make the full batch and freeze half of them without the frosting! I’m so glad you love this recipe and if you try cupcakes we would love to hear how it goes for you!
Baked and followed instruction as written. It was a hit. Very good flavor and moist. Frosting is perfect as well. My family loved the lemon flavor. It’s a keeper. Thanks forvthe recipe
I needed a way to use up an abundance of ripe bananas without resorting to the standard banana bread. This recipe sounded promising. I followed it exactly. I am not a novice baker and I was careful not to overmix the batter. My results were disappointing. The cake turned out dense, like banana bread (even more so) instead of fluffy and cake-like in texture, and lacking moistness despite freezing after baking. The frosting is WAY too sweet. I like the lemon in it but the sweetness overpowers the cake. I wanted to like this recipe but won’t be making it again.
I just made it, it is in the oven. I just realized that it didn’t call for baking powder. I hope it turns out good. Will update when baked.
The recipe is correct as written (without baking powder). The baking soda and soured milk react to create the perfect rise.
How did it turn out Grace? Would you do anything different next time? thank you
Love this cake, very good. Mine take about 1.5 hrs to bake. Sometimes I just sprinkle icing sugar on it instead of making the icing.
This is by far the best cake I have ever made! Soft and fluffy and delicious! I made the 2X portion (which is great to have),I always make the following changes, I use soft brown sugar instead of white, I replace some of the butter with orange juice and added some orange zest. To be safe I added another teaspoon of baking powder (the dough looked great anyway) since I added all the ripe banana I had (six medium ones), and recipe called for 6 eggs and replaced the milk with yogurt, and made without the adding of lemon to milk. Thank you!
Great cake as is but all of your changes makes it an entirely new recipe.
sounds like a TOTALLY different recipe! Too many changes, but I’m so happy your family loved it!
Can cupcakes be made from the cake recipe? If so, what temp and time are the cupcakes baked for? Thank you.
While I haven’t made this into cupcakes, many readers have. I would suggest filling your cupcake liners ⅔ full and baking for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. We would love to hear how it goes for you!
Love this cake. My family devoured it In 2 days.
I set my oven for 350…put the cake in and lowered it to 300, as directed. I set my timer for 55 minutes. Thank God I checked it after cooking for 25 minutes. It was done. Had I let my timer
guide me, I would have had very well done cake!! It tastes delicious, but bakers beware!!!
Perhaps your oven is cooking too hot? You might purchase an oven gauge to see if the dial is accurate. Best wishes
Best I’ve ever had!!
Super moist and delicious!!