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
Absolutely delicious. Made it during winter, I just left it outside for a little bit. Everyone who ate it, loved it. Thank you very much.
Thank you for another winner
You rock girl, you really do.
Trusted the freezer, and very glad I did.
This cake is the bomb!
We have a few of your recipes on dinner rotation as well.
Everything is so easy and Good.
Just finished this cake .. the recipe is just about perfect … as per my own style of cooking .. I added a little more zest to the frosting and went with a little vanilla along with some juice. 3 cups of powdered sugar is more than enough for the frosting .. mine was done in 60 minutes @ 300.. I borrow many ideas and meals from your page .. I do all the cooking here at home and have been cooking since I was a 12 .. for the last 20 yrs I have kept a log of things I have cooked and compiled many recipes .. my thinking was to create a basic cookbook for young men so they can cook for themselves and to impress women… every man needs to know how to cook basic meals..
Thanks for your hard work..
Hihi.. It looks delicious and wonder if you have the recipe in grams instead?
I do not have this recipe in grams.
Hi Holly, could you send me the recipe you have in grams, thank you
I do not have this recipe in grams.
Do you put the cake in the freezer directly from the oven or wait a bit before doing that?
This is delicious. I did make a couple of changes because of lack of ingredients. Instead of butter in the cake I used applesauce and I only did half the amount of frosting which I thought was plenty.
Super moist! Cake is tasty, and the frosting is perfect gooey top hat for this delicious concoction. We loved this recipe.I
I LOVE “SPEND WITH PENNIES” RECIPES!!!!!
I made two of these today and they.turned out wonderful. Holly, I think you need to fix your 2x and 3x as it still has the same amount of bananas. I doubled the bananas to 6 instead of 3 as in your 2x recipe.
thankyou
Hi Sami, when you double or triple the recipe the quantities will change but the light grey portion does not. 1 1/3 cup is approximately 3 bananas, so when double it will be about 6 bananas, and triples it will be approximately 9 bananas. I hope that helps!
add 1 to 2 more bananas I promise you won’t regret it
I also ran out of vanilla extract and subbed in pure maple syrup instead this time and honestly it’s just as good. I use this recipe pretty frequently, I always just end up using more bananas than it calls for .
This cake is divine!! Perfect easy snack cake with just the right amount of icing. I did 2 teaspoons on vanilla & added 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, about 1/4 teaspoons nutmeg & about 1/8 teaspoon ginger to up the flavor a bit. Incredibly moist!!
I made this cake and it came out amazing! I think maybe I needed to cook it a few minutes longer because right in the center seemed like it could have cooked a bit more. but none the less it was delicious. I hope I understood the baking instructions correctly: pre heat over to 350° put cake in and immediately reduce over temperature to 300° ?
L, I am glad that you enjoyed the cake. Yes, those are the correct cooking instructions.
love, love, LOOOOOVE this recipe! even my daughter that “hates” bananas loves it. the 1st couple of times, i didn’t see the freezer part & it was great. we usually make this, have some good butter ready & just eat it right out of the pan. i use cane sugar & reduce it to 3/4c & even pull back on the brown sugar a bit as well . i also add my “holy trinity” of cinnamon, ginger & nutmeg. scrumptious!
This recipe yielded a beautiful, soft crumb and perfect balance of sweet and tangy with a hint of salt. Absolutely delicious!
Am I understanding this correctly? Take it out of the oven then put in the freezer right away? Or let cool on counter?
SandyMc, you can set it on the counter for your dish to cool down a bit before popping it in the freezer if you are nervous. But it helps make the cake extra moist so I definitely recommend trying it.
I made this cake for my husband’s birthday and iced it with my (less sweet) cream cheese frosting recipe. My husband said it was the best cake I’ve ever made and I bake A LOT. Thank you so much. I’m saving this recipe forever.
Can this recipe be made in (2) 8 in cake pans?
While I haven’t tried it, other readers have successfully baked this in 8-inch round pans at 350 degrees for 28-30 minutes. Let us know how it goes!
Having difficulty navigating your website to get a recipe. I subscribed to your website but the recipe did not appear in my inbox as stated. I set up the account and saved the recipe. I can see the recipe saved in the account but it will not open so I can read it or print it. I watched the video. What am I missing? Short of copying the recipe by writing down I don’t know what else to do. Very disappointed!!
Which recipe are you looking for CJ?
Hi! I am excited to make this for a Christmas party. Do you have any recommendations for time and temperature for cupcakes?
While I haven’t tried it, many readers have successfully made this into cupcakes. 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!
I made this but substituted vanilla with almond extract and it was so good! I sprinkled chocolate chips on top before putting it in the oven and the batter was the perfect density to let them stay on the top of the cake. Will definitely be trying this recipe again.
are there any alterations that need to be made for high altitude.?
It should work at a higher altitude but I would love to hear how it turns out for you!
I just made this cake at 9000 ft. Elevation. The only thing I did different was to decrease the baking soda to 1 tsp. I also whipped it a little longer before adding flour etc. Both are high altitude tricks. It came out beautiful in a 9×13 pan, not an easy feat at this elevation!
Thank you for sharing the tips for baking this at a high elevation—I’m sure many will appreciate it! Glad you loved it.
I made this banana cake for my sisters birthday “it was sooooo good”. It was very moist. I followed the instructions and it came out perfect. My sister and I put the cake in the refrigerator after a day and it was even better chilled…. Thank you.