Banana cake. Cream cheese frosting. Chopped pecans.
This is a great banana cake. You may even want to eat the frosting by the spoonful. I did.
OK. That’s a fair criticism. I have posted a number of banana cake and bread recipes on Blue Cayenne. It is fair criticism unless, of course, you come from the school of thought that holds that there can never-ever-never be too much banana cake. (That’s my alma mater!)
The truth is that this is the high season for all sorts of fruits and vegetables I love and I’ve been shamelessly overbuying. As you can see from the photograph below, this week I have two overflowing fruit bowls for my one-person household. How in the world did I let that that happen?
I confess that overbuying fruits and vegetables is a life-long problem for me. My personal control flies out the window when I’m around beautiful produce. My heart quickens and my imagination goes into overdrive picturing all the great things I can make.
This week my market was overflowing with beautiful peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, cauliflower, and beets. Bottom line, my banana bowl has been neglected and once again I needed to bake with overripe bananas.
This particular banana cake is a slightly different take on baking with bananas. It is a yogurt banana cake topped with a to-die-for cream cheese frosting and sprinkled liberally with chopped pecans. Wow!
Hungry yet? Here is the recipe and remember that you can type bananas into the search bar on the right side of this post to find other wonderful banana bread and cake recipes. You may even decide to purposely let your bananas get overripe!
Save RecipeIngredients
- 1 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
- 1/2 C. cornstarch
- 1/2 t. kosher salt
- 2 t. baking powder
- 1 1/8 stick unsalted butter (softened)
- 1 1/2 C. granulated sugar
- 2 t. vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 3 ripe bananas
- 1 t. lemon juice (fresh)
- 8 oz. Greek yogurt
- 2 1/4 stick unsalted butter (softened)
- 1 C. cream cheese (softened)
- 2 t. vanilla extract
- 5 C. powdered sugar (sifted)
- 1 to 2 t. lime juice
- Chopped pecans for sprinkling on top of the cake
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Prepare a springform pan by greasing it with butter and lining the bottom with parchment paper.
- Measure dry ingredients into a bowl. (flour, cornstarch, salt and baking powder)
- Cream butter with sugar and vanilla extract (in a different bowl) until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time alternating with the dry ingredients.
- Mash bananas and add the lemon juice to the bananas. Add the yogurt and mix. Add the banana/yogurt mixture to the batter and stir to combine.
- Pour batter into your prepared springform cake tin and bake the banana cake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.
- Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool in the pan (sitting on a wire rack) for approximately 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, carefully remove the cake from the pan and let it cool completely on a wire rack.
- Meanwhile, prepare the frosting by beating butter, cream cheese and vanilla until you have a smooth mixture. Add the powdered sugar to the mixture and continue to beat until you have a thick and smoooth icing. Add the lime juice to your taste. Spread the icing on the cake and sprinkle chopped pecans over the top of the cake to decorate. This recipe makes a lot of frosting (and uses a lot of powdered sugar). The cake is delicious smothered in the icing but you could choose to halve the frosting and have a wonderful cake, too. Your call.
This recipe is adapted from one that appeared on http://eatlittlebird.com.
