Banana Snack Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
My baking motivations come from a myriad of different sources. Sometimes I’ve had a recipe bookmarked for months… sometimes I see something on Pinterest that I want to make immediately… sometimes something in a magazine makes a light bulb go off… and sometimes I have grandparents coming over for lunch and four way, way overripe bananas sitting on my counter. Thus, banana cake!
In an effort to put together a casual dessert for lunch with my grandparents and also use up my quickly-going-bad bananas, I though that an easy snack-style cake would be a great choice. I typically turn to banana bread when I need to put browning bananas to good use, and was looking forward to having another easy banana baked good in my rotation for such occasions.
This cake turned out exactly how I’d hoped; it’s easy to make, comes together quickly, incredibly moist and, most importantly, delicious. Originally, I wasn’t going to include a frosting, but I just couldn’t help myself. I love frosting, especially cream cheese frosting. If you’re a fellow frosting lover, I think you’ll find this to be amazing. My mom, my grandpap and I all gave it a big two thumbs up. If you’re a little more ambivalent about frosting, you might consider scaling it back; both my grandma and Chief Culinary Consultant thought the frosting could have maybe been halved. (What!? Who are these people?! How are they related to me?!)
Do you have a favorite recipe you turn to when there is a plethora of browning bananas on your counter?
More Favorite Banana Recipes
- Grandma’s Banana Nut Bread
- Hummingbird Cake
- Banana Cream Pie
- No Bake Banana Split Dessert
- Southern Banana Pudding
Banana Snack Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) salt
- 1⅓ cups (266.67 g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (54.5 ml) vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 4 ripe bananas, mashed
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces (226.8 g) cream cheese, at room temperature
- ½ cup (113.5 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- Pinch salt
- 4 cups (480 g) powdered sugar
- 1½ teaspoons (1.5 teaspoons) vanilla extract
Instructions
- Make the Cake: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking pan; set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
- Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar and oil together on medium speed until completely combined. Add both eggs and beat to combine, then add the mashed bananas and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, mixing until combined. Use a rubber spatula to give the batter one last mix, then pour into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Set on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Make the Cream Cheese Frosting: With an electric mixer, cream together the cream cheese, butter and salt on medium speed. Reduce the speed to medium-low and gradually add the powdered sugar until it has all been combined. Add the vanilla extract, increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy.
- Spread the frosting over the cooled cake, cut into squares and serve. Leftovers should be covered with plastic wrap or placed in an airtight container and kept at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
What a delicious little snack cake!! I cut the recipe in half and made an 8×8. Loved the frosting – no such thing as too much frosting in my book. Because I really love walnuts with banana, I toasted some and added them to the top of the frosting. Just a personal preference! Cake is a great soft almost light texture, yet hearty enough to hold up under the cream cheese frosting. I was afraid it was going to be banana bread-like rather than cake-like. Definitely cake texture. I really love it!
This recipe turns out great every time
Thank you
Any time I have ripe bananas, I scroll through Pinterest to find new ways to use them. And I ALWAYS come back to this cake. I don’t need any other recipe- this is my favorite! I have made it for years and recommend it to everyone. I see people have complained about it being dense. That is why I love it. It’s a hearty cake! In fact, I like it better the next day straight from the fridge. And the frosting…. The best! I find that I only need a bit half the frosting for the cake, and I do put a decently thick layer. But then I use the rest of the frosting for cinnamon rolls a day or two later. I have the pickiest kids on earth, and my whole family loves this cake. Chefs kiss 😘
My family LOVED this cake. The flavor was delicious. However, the cake itself was very dense, heavy & almost wet looking. I followed the recipe exactly but used two 8” metal cake pans as I wanted a layer cake vs a sheet cake. The icing was so good and a great compliment to the banana cake. Next time I will add baking powder to the recipe and perhaps the butter as well as another reader suggested.
Is it possible to halve this recipe?
Awesome!! So moist!!! My family loves this cake!!
Best banana cake ever. Moist and tender. Not too sweet! Perfect!
This cake is light a fluffy. The frosting is so good you can eat it with a spoon! Will definitely make this again.
This recipe is easy and very delicious!! Made it exactly as written and had no issues.
I made this and mine too came out a gooey mess that fell flat in the middle. disappointed : ( wont use this recipe again
4 small, medium or large bananas? Equivalent measurement in cups?
Medium bananas, about 1 1/3 cups mashed.
Okay so the first time I made this it was a disaster, like others who tried I found it didn’t rise too well and it was very dense and the texture was a bit off. Because I really liked the flavour I wanted to try again so I read through all the comments and decided to do what one reader did and that was add baking powder and butter and bake in a smaller tin, I found the 9×13 made too flat a cake.
I beat 1/4 cup butter with the oil and sugar and added 1 teaspoon baking powder with the dry ingredients and put in a tray maybe 8×12 which made a slightly higher cake.
It was perfect!!! Just how I like it and is now my favorite banana cake. So even though I tweaked it I’m very happy to have found this recipe so thank you for sharing.