Banana Walnut Cake
Use ripe bananas for this delicious, moist Banana Walnut Cake that is prepared with a lemony cream cheese frosting. This banana cake recipe has been in our family for years! The frosting is superb and so tasty, and it makes a great party cake. Yum!
Birthday celebrations are the best celebrated with my mom’s recipe: Banana Walnut Cake. This cake recipe has always been my dad’s favorite, so I try to make it everytime we see him. The creamy, lemony cream cheese frosting (just a hint of lemon) is sooooo good!
Banana Walnut Cake
Pulling out my Mom’s church cookbook that she gave me for my 30th birthday, I thumbed to the “cake” section where I already had this recipe earmarked, and made one of her favorite cakes: Banana Walnut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. I combined the recipes from 2 different pages because I had made notes in the book that these recipes were delicious together.
Read more: Banana Walnut Cake
Everytime I have ripe bananas sitting on the counter, just waiting to be mashed and baked into a delicious cake, I reach for this recipe. The secret is to have very ripe bananas, because they are the sweetest! You can make a layered cake, or you can make it in a 9×13 baking pan.
Why I love this recipe
- You can make it anytime of year–all you need is ripe bananas.
- It’s a great party cake.
- You can decorate the top however you choose.
- Make ahead and freeze the cake (before frosting) – a great tip!
Gather these ingredients
Make the cake:
- Butter
- Eggs
- Very ripe bananas
- Buttermilk
- All purpose flour
- Sugar
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Walnuts
Make the cream cheese frosting:
- Cream cheese
- Powdered sugar
- Butter
- Lemon zest
- Vanilla
- More walnuts
How do you make Banana Walnut Cake?
Bake the cake:
- Cream together butter, eggs, and sugar. Add vanilla and buttermilk.
- Mix dry ingredients together and add to the creamed mixture.
- Add bananas and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. Mix well.
- Pour into 2 (or 3 small) well-greased cake pans.
- Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.
- Cool for 15 minutes and remove from pans. Frost the cake and serve!
Make the frosting:
- With hand mixer, combine cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add vanilla and lemon zest, continuing to mix. Add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Mix until smooth.
- Divide frosting into thirds in between each cake layer making sure to push frosting in large globs (not smooth) to the edges of the cake. Once frosting is done, sprinkle walnuts on top and place cake in refrigerator for at least an hour, allowing frosting to harden slightly (this makes cutting the cake much easier).
Tips and substitutions
- A tip about banana cake is that you can make ahead of time, and freeze the layers on a cookie sheet in the freezer! Pull out of the freezer, frost, and serve!
- You can also make it in a 9×13 pan. Watch the baking time so you don’t overbake the cake.
- Ripe bananas: Ripe bananas are essential to the success of the cake, to make it banana-flavored (nice and sweet) and moist.
- Frosting is optional, as you can just serve it plain with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. We also love this cake frosted with chocolate or pecan frosting.
- Swap out the walnuts for pecans, or you can leave the nuts out (for nut allergies).
- Garnishing with flowers: Make sure if you garnish the cake with flowers that you use edible flowers.
- We layered the 3 cakes together differently this time, with cream cheese frosting in between and the frosting on top. Or, frost the entire cake.
How do you serve a banana walnut cake?
Serve with your favorite ice cream, like vanilla, chocolate, vanilla-pecan, or even lemon gelato! It’s refreshing. You can also leave off the frosting and serve with whipped cream and strawberries (or any berries).
We served this for my Dad’s birthday, and it’s been a family tradition to cook a family favorite German dish called Fleischkuechle with my sisters, for a birthday dinner. We also serve these green beans.
Storage
Bake and freeze and cool the cake layers (before frosting) and wrap with plastic wrap (tightly), and freeze in ziplock bags (remove all of the air) for up to 3 months.
After the cake is baked, because of the cream cheese, store the cake in the fridge!
More banana recipes you may want to try while you are here:
- Best ever Sour Cream Banana Bread
- No-Bake Banana Dream Dessert
- Banana Popsicles
- Banana Coffee Cake
- Banana Pudding Trifle
Get the Recipe:
Banana Walnut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
Ingredients
CAKE:
- ⅔ cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 4 ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
- ⅔ cup buttermilk
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 ¼ tsp. baking powder
- 1 ¼ tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
FROSTING:
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 6 Tbsp butter, softened
- 4 tsp lemon zest
- 2 tsp vanilla
- ¼ c walnuts, toasted and chopped
Instructions
CAKE:
- Cream together butter, eggs, and sugar. Add vanilla and buttermilk.
- Mix dry ingredients together and add to the creamed mixture.
- Add bananas and ½ cup chopped walnuts. Mix well.
- Pour into 2 (or 3 small) well-greased cake pans.
- Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.
- Cool for 15 minutes and remove from pans. Frost the cake and serve!
FROSTING:
- With hand mixer, combine cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add vanilla and lemon zest, continuing to mix. Add in powdered sugar ½ cup at a time. Mix until smooth.
- Divide frosting into thirds in between each cake layer making sure to push frosting in large globs (not smooth) to the edges of the cake. Once frosting is done, sprinkle walnuts on top and place cake in refrigerator for at least an hour, allowing frosting to harden slightly (this makes cutting the cake much easier).
Notes
Hello and welcome to my home and table!
I’m Sandy—lover of food, family, cooking, THE BIG BOARD, travel, and bringing people together. Through great recipes and connection around the table, we become better, stronger, and more courageous people. Feasting on Life is real, and every time we do it, we grow a little more. Read more...
Have you ever made in a 9×13 pan instead? How would I adjust baking time?
I have not, but if you make it, come back and tell me the time for 9×13! Or, if I make it soon, I’ll add it in here.
Do you use buttermilk or milk? video shows Milk but recipe reads buttermilk. I’m trying to do it now but it looks really clumpy
It’s def. buttermilk and yes, it will be a little lumpy – no worries! (I’ll have to fix the video, thanks for pointing that out). ENJOY!
This looks DELICIOUS! I love banana bread (and my family does, too!), so I bet banana cake would be delicious – basically banana bread with frosting on it, right?!
I love that you think it’s a big deal to celebrate birthdays. I DO TOO. We just celebrated my youngest daughter’s 1st birthday this last weekend. When I asked my older daughter, who is 3, what kind of cake I should make for her sister’s birthday, she said she needed a blueberry cake, so that’s what I set out to make! I love being adventurous in the kitchen, but I hadn’t yet made a blueberry cake, so that was fun. Everyone at the party thought it was super fun that the 3-year-old determined the flavor! :) It was hit, and I just kept thinking that whole day how honored and thankful I am that I was having the opportunity to celebrate my daughter’s birthday! So special for a mama!! – Mauri @www.theamericanpatriette.com
Yum and church cookbooks are the best. Especially when the person who contributed the recipe conjurs up a memory
Hello,
I recently made this cake and have to say it is delicious. I am not used to measuring things in cups (as I am from the UK and we do everything in grams on the scale) so was a bit dubious as to how the cake would turn out. It came out beautifully though and made the whole house smell of bananas. What a great way to use up ripe bananas, even got the kids involved with the mashing, mixing and decorating!
I’m getting ready to make now, only will be omitting filling as I’m making as cupcakes. I only wish you had some comments from folks who have tried making and tasting. I pulled a similar recipe off the internet, but the cake came out dry. This time, I’ve compared your cake receipe to my banana bread recipe (which everyone raves over) and they’re very similar. My NEXT comment will be to let you know how these turned out!
My mom used to make banana cake when I was growing up. I had forgotten about it until now. I love making banana bread and really want to try this cake. Thanks for the memories. :)
Sandy, Thanks so much for posting this recipe! This is my Mom’s favorite cake and there is only one bakery that makes it. Next time I’ll make it for her. Blessings my friend. BTW – I pinned it.
Sandy, I love the first picture of you and your family! This cake looks fabulous. I hope he had a happy birthday!!
Don’t tell my mom that this recipe exists outside of her home! She thinks it’s her secret recipe….even though someone else put it in their church cookbook! Too funny! It is that fantastic!!!! Maybe I’ll tell my kids it’s a family secret too! Makes it more special! Love the pics of your Dad and all the happy smiles! Hugs!