Ultimate Banana Cake Recipe

4.94 from 16 votes

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This Ultimate Banana Cake Recipe is a simple scratch banana cake filled with walnuts and slathered with amazing brown butter frosting. Perfect for special occasions or anytime you have ripe bananas!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This banana cake is amazing. Now, I like baked banana products just as much as the next person, but this brown butter frosting is what really takes the cake (see what I did there?) and is beyond delicious. It will take any dessert and make it special!

Banana Cake

 

How to make this Banana Cake Recipe:

You only need a few pantry ingredients, ripe bananas and about an hour to create this sweet treat!

  1. Using a whisk, combine the dry ingredients into a large bowl.
  2. In a separate bowl, stir the wet ingredients together: sugar, oil, applesauce, eggs, vanilla and mashed bananas.
  3. Incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until a mostly lump-free batter forms.
  4. Pour into 9×9 greased baking dish and bake at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until baked through.
  5. Make the frosting: brown your butter and then stir together with vanilla, powdered sugar and heavy cream.
  6. Spread brown butter frosting over cooled cake and top with walnuts. Cut into pieces and serve!

Banana Cake Baking Troubles?

All ovens vary but here are some tips and tricks to try to work out some issues.

  • Check Your Ovens Internal Temperature – Over time ovens become less accurate, there’s no way to prevent this, it just happens with repeated use. My suggestion is to use an internal oven thermometer to make sure your oven is accurate.
  • Dark Cake Pan – A darker pan usually always results in darker edges. If this is happening, try placing tin foil on top of the cake to try and prevent browning. You can also try reducing the heat and increasing baking time. If you do this check your cake often with a toothpick until it comes out clean.
  • High Altitude Baking – If you live at a higher altitude than most, you’ll need to change some baking measurements to get this cake right. Check here for some tips and tricks with this particular problem.

Like this banana cake? Try these other banana recipes:

Like clockwork, within an hour, people just started showing up to my house. Nieces, nephews, neighbors, you name it. Lo and behold this cake was devoured and didn’t survive even 3 hours! Moral of the story: this cake is good. REALLY good.

So if you have browning bananas on your counter, this would be a great treat for your weekend! Printable recipe card below! Enjoy!

Banana Cake
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4.94 from 16 votes

Ultimate Banana Cake Recipe

This Ultimate Banana Cake Recipe is made with walnuts and slathered with brown butter frosting. Enjoy on special occasions or just because!
servings 9 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

for the cake-

for the frosting-

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray an 8x8 square dish with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
  • In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, excluding the sugar. Stir to combine and set aside.
  • In a different bowl, whip sugar, oil, and applesauce together. Stir in eggs, vanilla and mashed banana. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined. Pour into prepared dish and bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted. Cool completely.
  • To make the frosting, place butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Just after the butter melts, start swirling the pan in small circles. After about 30 seconds or so, the butter should start foaming and will turn an amber color and smell nutty. Once this happens, remove from heat immediately and pour into a different container. Cool to room temperature.
  • Once butter has cooled, whip together with vanilla, powdered sugar and cream until smooth and creamy. Spread over cooled cake and top with chopped walnuts, if desired. Store in an airtight container until ready to serve.

Nutrition

Calories: 388kcal | Carbohydrates: 59g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Cholesterol: 52mg | Sodium: 251mg | Potassium: 174mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 39g | Vitamin A: 255IU | Vitamin C: 2.6mg | Calcium: 20mg | Iron: 1.3mg
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Banana Cake, Banana Cake Recipe, Brown Butter Frosting

 

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Recipe Rating




56 Responses
  1. Alice

    5 stars
    This was absolutely AMAZING! Serve it with coffee & tea at a little gathering we had, and everyone RAVED about it!!! I’ll be making a few more (since I have so many spotted bananas) to freeze for future company. Thank you so much for this!!!

  2. Casey

    5 stars
    One of the best and easiest cakes to make. Perfect for a small family. Baking it at 325* took 45 minutes in my oven, but it was worth the wait. I love brown butter frosting, but opted to make penuche frosting this time. Superb!

  3. Shelley Anderson

    5 stars
    This dessert always gets rave reviews but I too find I have to add extra time to get the middle of the cake to be as baked as the edges. Today it was an extra 20 minutes and I still was uncertain but flavor, texture and color were still great! Love it!!!

  4. Kj

    5 stars
    Perfection, I love how the cake isn’t crazy sweet, the frosting complements it perfectly. You can still taste the banana without the frosting taking over. Thank you so much for this!

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  7. Eva Villarreal

    5 stars
    I LOVE this recipe, thank you for sharing!!!

    -My substitutions: I did 1/2 cup of oil, since I did not have any applesauce. And, I went 1/2 cup of brown sugar and about a 1/3 cup of regular, coarse sugar, not refined. It came out so moist and awesome!! :o)

  8. dawn mcmicheaux

    when I use banana in any desert I roast them in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, it intensifies the flavor of the fruit, let cool and add to favorite recipe

  9. Robin

    5 stars
    Made this cake today and it’s very good – a wonderful alternative to banana bread. I doubled the frosting so that I’d be able to cover the top and sides. The recipe is a keeper!

  10. Julie

    So, I have made this a handful of times. The first time I did it came out wonderfully. Almost every (except maybe one more time) it just doesn’t turn out right. I change nothing, I’m not at a high elevation, I’ve tried different ovens and it either doesn’t cook all the way even though I keep it in longer and the middle sinks, or I try to keep cooking it and it gets too dry.
    The flavor is wonderful when it’s right but I’m so frustrated! Any advice? It has been in 30 minutes now, the edges are getting golden so I put some foil over top hoping it wouldn’t brown too far and get dry…crossing my fingers for some awesome banana cake!

  11. Clover

    I’m not able to print this. Anyone else have this problem? When I click on the “click to print” the recipe isn’t there and nothing prints.

  12. Crystal

    5 stars
    I made this for my son’s first birthday. Amazing! I left out the nutmeg because I was out, used flax instead of eggs, and did cupcakes rather than cake. Thanks for sharing!

  13. Brittania

    If I were to make this in cupcake form, would you suggest any alterations?
    I also have cake flour (and regular flour)
    Which would produce better results?
    And what will the cake flour produce texture wise?

  14. Heather

    5 stars
    I just made this last week and it was wonderful!!! We ate the WHOLE cake is less than 24 hrs! I followed the directions exactly and only had to add a little time to the total baking time. LOVE IT!!!

  15. Stephanie

    I’m not sure what I did wrong, but I just tried making this and mine has chunks of cooked egg (I think…) in it. Also, the middle didn’t cook as much as the outside. Is it because I used a darker, nonstick pan? 🙁

    1. Lauren

      The only thing I can think of is the egg wasn’t evenly mixed in. A darker pan always gets darker edges, but it’s weird that the middle didn’t cook. Sorry it didn’t work! Darn!

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  17. Katie

    5 stars
    So I made this last night/this morning to take to my parent’s house for dinner tonight. It was so quick and easy and SO delicious. I left out the walnuts, and my baking time took about twice as the recipe calls for. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I see many more of these in my family’s future.

  18. Yasmeen @ Wandering Spice

    Brown butter frosting… Sounds so, so good! Bananas are back to normal prices after being about $12/kg for a few months (due to flooding up north). Now I’m just looking for excuses to bake with them, and you have provided a perfect one!

    Enjoy Nashville… haven’t been there in years but have fantastic memories of it.

  19. Jen Morris

    Discovered your blog via Pinterest (Nutella topped Red Velvet Oreo Cheesecakes-divine by the way). Anyway, this sounds delish! I may have to go get bananas just so I can let them turn brown! Look forward to reading more from you!

  20. Laurie @SimplyScratch

    Have a great trip!! I have one too many bananas right now… hmmm I guess this cake will just have to be made! Drat 😉

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