If you are looking for a delicious banana cake that is easy to make, this is the recipe for you. This cake requires no fancy pans and can be enjoyed either frosted or plain. The browned butter, maple cream cheese frosting is delightful and makes this a five-star banana dessert.
This moist banana cake is perfect for using up 3 overripe, average-sized bananas. Ripe bananas are my favorite fruit to use in baked goods. Baked goods with banana take on such a lovely, rich banana flavor. Recipes like my Chocolate Chip Banana Bars, Zucchini Banana Bread and our Nutella Banana Muffins are some of my favorites.
If you love Nemo’s Cream Cheese frosted Banana Cakes, this recipe tastes VERY similar, but fresher! These cakes are ones that I would eat EVERYDAY when I worked at a convenience store. They were so amazing, so I set out to try and recreate them at home.
Ripe Bananas are the best bananas for baking
Ripe bananas are truly the best baking ingredients. Honestly, if you haven’t baked with speckly, slightly smooshy bananas you are missing out! Baked desserts with banana flavor are the best!!
This recipe requires 4 small ripe bananas, or 3 normal sized ones. Bananas that are green, or bright yellow are not optimal for a recipe like this. They are however good for recipes like these No-Bake Mini Banana Cream Pies.
Baking pan + a hack
For this recipe, I used a 9″ x 13″ Pyrex glass dish lined with parchment paper. Have you ever baked with parchment paper? I swear by this baking hack. All my breads and cakes are baked in parchment-lined pans for easy removal and cleanup. Plus, it also helps speed up the cooling time since the cake can breathe more easily once removed from the pan.
All about making browned butter
Chances are, at some point you have heard of brown butter or browned butter. While it might seem like some kind of fancy butter product, it is actually pretty simple.
To brown butter, and create browned butter is to simply add butter to a saucepan over medium heat. That in turn will melt down the butter, and it will bubble and slightly brown.
For this Maple Cream Cheese Frosting, I added the butter to a saucepan, and cooked it over medium heat for about 2 minutes until it started to bubble, and create brown bits in the bottom of the pan. Once it started to brown, I removed it from the heat immediately as to not create “burned butter”.
Tips for making this dessert
If you do not like nuts (like my kids) you can omit them.
Make sure you do not over mix this cake batter or it will not be fluffy, and it will turn out to be super dense.
This recipe is for a 9″ x 13″ cake. I used a parchment-lined Pyrex glass pan. If you do not like using parchment paper, you can grease your pan with nonstick spray.
Make sure to only use room temperature cream cheese for this recipe. If you do not, the frosting will be lumpy and gritty.
I used maple extract (similar to vanilla extract) for this recipe. However, YES, you can use vanilla extract for the frosting if you do not have maple. Additionally, you can enjoy this cake unfrosted, or just dusted with powdered sugar if you prefer to not frost it.
Allow this cake to cool for at least one hour at room temperature before frosting it.
How long does this cake last?
This cake needs to be refrigerated since the icing does contain dairy products and does not have preservatives.
It will last up to 6 days when kept covered. You can heat in the microwave if you prefer it warm.
Easy Banana Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Equipment
- 9" x 13" Pyrex baking dish
- electric hand mixer
Ingredients
Banana Cake
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 overripe bananas mashed
- 8 tbsp. unsalted butter softened to room temp
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup walnuts *optional
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 tbsps. browned butter *see notes
- 8 oz. cream cheese full fat, at room temperature.
- 1 tsp. maple extract *can sub in vanilla extract
- 3 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Line a 9" x 13" Pyrex with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, mash bananas until no longer lumpy; set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
- Add eggs, extract, butter, and both sugars to the mashed banana bowl and mix with a wooden spoon.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
- Pour batter into the parchment lined pan.
- Bake cake for 25-28 minutes or until a fork inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
Frosting
- Brown the butter in a saucepan for 2-3 minutes until it bubbles and starts to make brown specs. Remove from heat.
- In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, browned butter, and extract until fluffy and lump-free with an electric hand mixer.
- Slowly fold in the powdered sugar and whip until lump-free, and fluffy; set aside.
- Once the cake is cooled for one hour and is not longer hot to the touch, spread the frosting over the cake with a rubber spatula.
- Cute cake into 12 square slices and enjoy!
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