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Banana bread isn’t the only thing you can do with some overripe bananas. Why not make this classic banana cake for dessert instead?
Definitely make some of my Cream Cheese Icing ever for this recipe. And if you need more banana recipes try my strawberry banana bread or my banana nut bread, two of my faves!
Classic Banana Cake
Banana cake is a lesser-known use of overripe bananas, as most people naturally rely on regular banana bread to get rid of those slightly aged, black, and brown bananas gathering dust in their fruit bowls.
However, for something sweeter and with more of an intense spiciness, this recipe for a banana cake is the perfect dessert, whether as a weeknight after-dinner dessert or to celebrate your next big occasion. Just make sure that your bananas are really, really ripe!
Classic Banana Cake Ingredients
Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts, as there are a few fiddly ingredients here.
• All-purpose flour
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Ground cinnamon
• Ground nutmeg
• Butter
• Granulated sugar
• Brown sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Mashed ripe banana
• Buttermilk
• Chopped walnuts
• Cream cheese frosting
Classic Banana Cake Ingredients
Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts, as there are a few fiddly ingredients here.
• All-purpose flour
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Ground cinnamon
• Ground nutmeg
• Butter
• Granulated sugar
• Brown sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Mashed ripe banana
• Buttermilk
• Chopped walnuts
• Cream cheese frosting
How To Frost Your Cake
This cake basically frosts itself and you can hide any and all imperfections with walnuts and fresh bananas!
The best way to do it without any fancy equipment is to put one of the cakes on a plate lying face down. Frost the top of that one completely, not worrying about how it looks.
Then, cover that with the other cake and apply the rest of your frosting onto the top. Using either an offset spatula or just a wide spoon. Brush the frosting all over. Don’t worry about making it even or consistent – just make sure every bit of it is evenly coated.
Once you fall in love with baking cakes you can invest in a proper cake-turner and learn about things like crumb layers, top removers, and pipette bags.
For this cake, just get it frosted, throw on some walnuts and fresh banana and don’t care about the appearance – it’s going to taste amazing no matter what!
How to Ripen Bananas
This banana cake recipe is the perfect way to use up leftover bananas that are a bit beyond their prime.
However, what if you want to make this and you don’t have some slightly rotten bananas on hand.
To speed up the ripening process, stick your bananas in a brown paper bag. This will let all of the ethylene gas, which is the plant hormone that encourages ripening and browning.
You can also stick your bananas in the freezer overnight. The freezing process will break the cell walls of the banana, releasing more of the sugars and making it taste a lot more sweet, as well as a lot easier to mash into the cake batter.
You can also bake them, there are instructions in this post on how to ripen bananas by baking them.
Looking for more delicious Cake recipes? Try these out:
• Chocolate Root Beer Soda Cake
Enjoy!
Love,
Karlynn
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Classic Banana Cake
- Prep Time
- 25 minutes
- Cook Time
- 30 minutes
- Course
- Dessert
- Cuisine
- American
- Servings
- 10
- Calories
- 544
- Author
- Karlynn Johnston
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2/3 cup butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 11/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana
- 2/3 cup buttermilk
- 2/3 cup chopped walnuts
- one batch cream cheese frosting
Toppings
- 1-2 fresh bananas, sliced
- 1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 °F. Grease and flour two round 8-inch pans and set aside. You can also use a 9×13 pan.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until fully combined, then stir in the vanilla and the mashed bananas.
- Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternating with buttermilk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Combine until smooth. Stir in nuts if wanted.
- Divide the batter between the two prepared pans.
- Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes for the round pans, around 35-40 for the 9×13 pan, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Remove and cool the cakes in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire baking racks to cool.
- Once cooled, prepare my cream cheese frosting. Place one cake on a plate then cover with icing. Place the other cake on top, then frost completely. If making in the 9×13, only make half the icing recipe and frost the top of the cake.
- Tops with walnuts and sliced fresh bananas if desired right serving. Slice and serve.
Nutrition Information
All calories and info are based on a third party calculator and are only an estimate. Actual nutritional info will vary with brands used, your measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
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Lisa Taylor says
Love reading and trying your recipes. Can’t wait to try the Pumpkin Dump Cake. I’ve made several other dump cakes but was actually looking for something different to do withe traditional pie or pumpkin roll. Thank you, keep them coming.