Cakes · Fruit

Scrumptious Banana Cake Bars

Linda @thedutchbaker

I love banana cakes 🙂 I love them with cream cheese frosting, chocolate or vanilla frosting, caramel, warm or cold. I love how easy and delicious they are. Whether in cupcake form or layered cake, they’re just super simple and fulfill your sweet tooth cravings 🙂

This is a recipe I’ve been making for ages now. I have made it with all sorts of toppings and fillings and as round or square cakes. The results are always spot on, super moist and flavourful cake and of course beautifully simple to make.

The key to making the perfect cake is to use over ripe bananas. The spotted and blackened ones, this ensures a moist, tender crumb and the best flavour.

This is a batch I made with cream cheese frosting and I especially love this picture 🙂 I can’t tell you why but it just makes me smile when I see it 🙂

I’ve added both my favourite vanilla and cream cheese frosting recipes below. I love drizzling pretty much everything with caramel 🙂 this is my favourite caramel recipe complete with step by step pictures, I love it!

One last tip, try this cake WARM. Seriously even just a slice 🙂

Scrumptious Banana Cake Bars

Makes 1 round or square 8 or 9 inch cake.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups (190gms) flour
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup (150gms) sugar ( I like to use 1/4 cup of this amount brown sugar, add 2 tablespoons more if you like a sweeter banana cake)
  • 1/2 cup (125mls) oil
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 over ripe bananas mashed
  • 1/4 cup (60mls) buttermilk
  • Optional: cinnamon

Vanilla cream frosting

  • 2 tablespoons salted butter
  • 3 tablespoons cream (more if desired)
  • 1 – 1 1/4 cups (125 -200gms) icing sugar
  • Pods from 1/2 vanilla bean or few drops of vanilla extract (to taste)

Cream cheese frosting:

  • 1/4 cup softened butter
  • 1/3 cup cream cheese
  • 1 cup icing sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (more to taste)

Caramel recipe

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 160C. Grease and flour an 8 inch square cake tin.
  2. In bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt (and cinnamon if desired) until well combined.
  3. In mixing bowl, whisk oil and sugars until combined. Mix will be gritty.
  4. Add in eggs one at a time then vanilla.
  5. Whisk in the mashed bananas then fold in the flour mix alternating with the buttermilk taking care not to over mix. Batter will be thick. Walnuts can be folded in at this stage too.
  6. Spread batter into cake tin and bake for 30 minutes or until baked through.
  7. Cool slightly before frosting.

For vanilla frosting:

  1. Whisk butter. Add in icing sugar, vanilla and cream adding more to taste.

For cream cheese frosting

  1. Whisk butter and cream cheese for 2 – 3 minutes until fluffy and creamy.
  2. Add in icing sugar gradually whisking between each addition. Whisk in vanilla.

Frost cake and drizzle caramel on top.

Here’s a cake I made for my brother’s birthday with fluffy vanilla frosting and melted chocolate 🙂

And here’s another topped with chopped nuts and Aero 🙂

Published by Linda @thedutchbaker

32 thoughts on “Scrumptious Banana Cake Bars”

    1. Thank you! These cakes really are super soft and dreamy 🙂 thanks for stopping by and leaving your sweet comment xx I really love the recipes you’re sharing on your blog, especially the salads! I’ll let you know when I’ve tried them 🙂 🙂

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  5. Linda, you have a lovely blog, with such mouthwatering recipes. I cannot wait to go through your entire blog, and bake some of your treats, (and pin endlessly)
    By the way…I too, am a huge fan of cheese !!! The cheesier the better 🙂 Have a wonderful rest of the day. 🙂

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    1. Thank you EmilyAnn! Hopefully a cookbook is in my future 🙂 As for re heating the cake, I usually just let it cool for a bit once it’s baked and out of the oven, add the frosting and dig in before it’s had a chance to completely cool. I’ve never had any left over to re heat so do let me know if you try, although I don’t recommend re heating if it has frosting on it or else the cake might become soggy. Thank you for stopping by and leaving your lovely comment xx

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    1. Thanks Megan 🙂 this really is the perfect treat and it’s very similar to a muffin just more cakey, that’s why I love how easy it is! I’ve got two more banana cake recipes to share but those are proper cakes 🙂 Thank you for stopping by and your sweet comment 🙂

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      Reply
  15. Pingback: Red Velvet Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting | the dutch baker
  16. Pingback: Banana Walnut Cake With Brown Sugar Frosting | the dutch baker

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