Best Ever Banana Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

Rhonda *J*'s Note:

This is one of (if not) the BEST banana cake I have ever tasted! I thought the oven temp of 275° sounded a little low, but this cake baked up (and rose) beautifully in my oven at this temp after pretty much exactly one hour. I do not know if the little "freezer trick" to this recipe is what ensured its moistness or not, but I did it, and it was exceptionally moist & delicious. Would be interesting to see if it still came out as great if this step was skipped. All I know is that I followed this recipe EXACTLY as stated (except that I had no buttermilk, so I subbed with a mix of lemon juice & milk) and I got exceptional results. So moist and yummy...a dense cake, similar in texture to a carrot cake... I personally would not call this frosted banana bread :o) Depending on the amount of frosting you like you can decide whether to half the recipe or not. I used the full recipe and had some leftover. I sprinkled on the chopped walnuts and threw this baby in the fridge and cut it the next day...TO DIE FOR! I really liked it slightly chilled, but great at room temp too! It got better each day it sat, I always make this cake at least the day before I need or want it. I was extremely pleased with this cake and will be making it over & over again!! So glad I came across this one!! (on another website). (* * Just to update the recipe, (based on some of the reviews), the baking time may vary based on individual ovens. It was RIGHT ON for my oven, but some others have stated it has taken 1 hour 10 minutes, 1 hour 20 minutes, and my sister just informed me that it took 1 hour 30 minutes in her oven!!!!!)

• Total Time: 1 hrs 15 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Serves: 16

Yield: 1.0 9x13 pan

• 1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed, ripe
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 1/8 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 1/2 cups icing sugar

Garnish

• chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 275°.
2. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan.
3. In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
5. In a large bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and 2 1/8 cups sugar until light and fluffy.
6. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla.
7. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.
8. Stir in banana mixture.
9. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
10. Remove from oven and place directly into the freezer for 45 minutes. This will make the cake very moist.
11. For the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth.
12. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla.
13. Add icing sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed until frosting is smooth.
14. Spread on cooled cake.
15. Sprinkle chopped walnuts over top of the frosting, if desired.

Reviews

[Good Tastin' Stuff]

To say this is the "Best Ever Banana Cake" would be an enormous understatement! This cake was FAN-TABULOUS!!! It took me back to my childhood, when we would get the little square banana cakes from the local deli. I made very slight changes. I substituted Splenda for the Sugar in the cake and for the icing, I used 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar and 1 1/2 cups Splenda and it was soooo smooth and tasty. I also didn't have buttermilk, so I added about 2 teaspoons of white distilled vinegar to whole milk. The recipe makes a lot of batter so I made two 9x9 square pans of the cake. I brought one into work - it was gone in the matter of seconds! Thanks for the recipe that will most definitly remain in my top 5 cake recipe box!

[kellielikestocook]

wonderful!!! only thing i did different was bake it at 375 for about an hour. the first time i baked it for over an hour and it was really wet, even after a clean toothpick. the second time when i adjusted the temp it worked great. so good!!!

[WithoutContext]

So good! I just made this with some ripe bananas I didn't want to waste. Actually, I made two batches. The first batch I split the batter between two 9 inch round disposable tins and one mini loaf pan (I plan on sharing so I didn't want to use real pans). The batter came up about 3/4 of the way on the side of the pan- BAD idea, they overflowed!! Good thing I had put everything on a large cookie sheet for stability and it caught most of the overflow. The second batch (after I ran to the store for more sugar and tins), I used 3, disposable 8" square pans, which were filled about halfway with batter. That was perfect! The first batch took about 1 1/2 hours, the second 1 hour and 20 minutes. I did put them in the freezer once they were done baking and used this cream cheese frosting recipe- delish! Thanks for the excellent recipe, I will use it again for sure!