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!
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!
- Using a whisk, combine the dry ingredients into a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, stir the wet ingredients together: sugar, oil, applesauce, eggs, vanilla and mashed bananas.
- Incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until a mostly lump-free batter forms.
- Pour into 9×9 greased baking dish and bake at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until baked through.
- Make the frosting: brown your butter and then stir together with vanilla, powdered sugar and heavy cream.
- 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 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!
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!
Ingredients
for the cake-
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1/4 cup plain applesauce unsweetened
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 large bananas mashed
for the frosting-
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts optional
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.
Beth - Slice of Southern says
Oh by the way…my family is just outside of Nashville….have fun!
Kathryn says
Have fun in Nashville! This cake looks so light and fluffy and that frosting sounds amazing!
Katrina says
This sounds lovely. Browned butter anything is great in my book!
Shannon @ Healthiful Balance says
Oh my gosh..this looks so good! Im really craving this now! 🙂
Christina @ This Woman Cooks! says
We always have bananas dying in the fruit basket. I love this!
Beth - Slice of Southern says
Heaven….pure heaven!
Lauren at Keep It Sweet says
Have a great time this weekend! The cake looks delicious!
Laurie @SimplyScratch says
Have a great trip!! I have one too many bananas right now… hmmm I guess this cake will just have to be made! Drat 😉
Rachel @ The Avid Appetite says
this looks so moist and perfect! Yum! Have a GREAT time in Nashville lady!
Aimee @ ShugarySweets says
This look delicious. Thanks for sharing! Have a safe trip too!
Deborah says
I totally pinned this off of someone yesterday! Looks amazing!!
Carrie says
I <3 brown butter frosting…. and banana cake!
Ali says
Pure bliss!! looks heavenly delicious. I’ll have to make this son. Have a safe trip 🙂
Emily says
Mmmm… sounds great! I love browned butter, I’ve never put it with banana before, but I bet its super good.
Jen Morris says
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!
CouponClippingCook says
This cake looks so moist and delicious. The frosting sounds so good. I’m looking forward to trying this.
Yasmeen @ Wandering Spice says
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.
Katie says
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.
Jess says
Yummy! Brown butter frosting with banana cake sounds wonderful. I’ve always had cream cheese with banana cake. Must try this.
Jolene (www.everydayfoodie.ca) says
Love the flavours in that cake – I prefer spiced cakes over any other type.
Stephanie says
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? 🙁
Lauren says
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!
KAY says
Is 325 degrees correct? I made this cake but it it took way long than 30 minutes to bake. It was pretty good :0)
Heather says
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!!!
Brittania says
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?
Crystal says
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!
Lauren says
Ooh yum!! Your version sounds so yummy!
Clover says
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.
MAL says
It is not printing for me as well. 🙁
Julie says
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!
Nancy says
Unable to get recipe to print….print link just lists web address, same thru pinterest.
Nancy Long says
I always cut and paste into word
lexie says
Do I have to use apple sauce?
Michelle Noyes says
Is this cake heavy like banana bread?
Lauren says
No, more like a cross between cake and banana bread. Not too heavy at all.
Ping says
Can you recommend what i substitute with the apple sauce ? Thks
Robin says
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!
dawn mcmicheaux says
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
Diane says
I realize that you just re-did your website but no one can print your recipes…just sayin’
Lauren says
Some of my recipes have the wrong html coding. I just switched this one over so it is now printable!
Shelley Moengen says
This is sooo good! And, it’s pretty , too.
Eva Villarreal says
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)
Robin says
I can’t wait to try this recipe. Doing it this weekend !😃