Best Ever Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I am so excited to share this recipe. I found it on pinterest and couldn’t wait to try it just by looking at the picture! It just looked so moist and melt-in-your-mouth, full of flavor. And let me tell you, the picture didn’t lie.

Jared and I were invited to have dinner at our friends house a few months ago.  I was to bring a dessert and I knew just the one- Best Ever Banana Cake coming right up! This cake was aaaaammmmaaaazzzziiiing. I had never had a banana cake, but I do love some banana bread. If you love banana bread, you have GOT to try this recipe asap! Anyway, I took the few leftover slices of cake to work. Everyone loved it and one my co-workers, Whitney, quickly requested the cake for her birthday in May (which was still a few months away). Fast forward- it’s May, and I was quietly wondering if Whitney still remembered the cake. She did. Her request was in and it was time for some baking!

Whitney’s cake had quite the journey…

Whitney snagged a bite for breakfast 🙂

Best Ever Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Adapted from Pine Cones and Acorns

Ingredients:

• 2 cups bananas , mashed
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1/8 tsp of  nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter , room temperature
• 2  1/8 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1  1/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) room temperature
• 1  8 oz. package cream cheese (I use 1/3 fat cream cheese)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• pecans for topping if desired

Preheat oven to 275°.  Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan or 9 inch rounds.

You will need a small, medium, and large sized bowl.

1. In the SMALL bowl- mix mashed bananas and lemon juice. Set aside.
2. In the MEDIUM bowl- mix flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
3. In the LARGE bowl- cream butter and sugar creating a light, fluffy consistency. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add vanilla.
4. With the beater on low, add about 1/3 of the flour mixture (MEDIUM bowl) to the butter/ sugar mixture in the LARGE bowl. Then add about 1/3 of the buttermilk. Alternate adding the flour and buttermilk until combined.
5. Fold or stir in the banana mixture from the SMALL bowl.
6. Pour batter into greased and floured pan/ pans. Bake for 1 hour and test with toothpick. If toothpick comes out clean, you’re done! If not, continue baking up to 15 more minutes until done. (Mine just took an hour).
7. Take pans directly from oven and place in freezer for 45 minutes (This locks the moisture in the cake).
8. Place on cooling rack to completely cool before frosting.

Frosting:

1. Cream room temperate butter and room temperature cream cheese together.
2. Add vanilla
3. Slowly add powdered sugar and beat until combined.
4. Frost cooled cake (See note).
5. Place pecans or other nuts evenly spread out on a cookie sheet and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 5-7 minutes. Watch them carefully as they will burn easily. Toasting the pecans gives them a slight candied flavor- and they smell SO good!
6. Decorate frosted cake with pecans or other nuts.

*Note: If you are making 2 rounds for a layer cake, you can make the cakes up to a day ahead. Seran wrap the cakes separately and place in refridgerator for a few hours or a day. This will also help the cake hold together when it is stacked.

*Frosting tip: When making layered cakes, frost the cake the first time just enough to lightly coat the cake. Don’t worry about crumbs at this point, because this is called the Crumb Coat. Place frosted cakes in fridge for about 30 minutes. Then, frost a second time- this time making it pretty 🙂

*Side note: I would like to try this with pecans baked into the cake. I bet it would be yummy! There is always next time 🙂 Let me know if you try it like this!

(I made an extra cake to share with Jared, my friend Amanda, and my parents 🙂 )