Zucchini Banana Cake with Maple Frosting
This Zucchini Banana Cake with Maple Frosting tastes like a giant maple bar! Optional to freeze this banana zucchini cake before serving.
Today we’re calling all banana cake lovers! If you love the moistness of banana bread and zucchini bread or cake, then you’ll love this old fashioned Zucchini Banana Cake with Maple Frosting combination.
Zucchini Banana Cake with Maple Frosting
The moist zucchini cake is so flavorable with bananas, and the “maple frosting” is truly the “frosting on the cake.”
It does taste like a maple bar! Yum! Or, you could frost these Zucchini Banana Muffins (if you’re a muffin lover, instead of cake).
Why we love this recipe
- It’s a moist zucchini banana cake with maple frosting that tastes like a maple bar.
- Optional to eat without frosting, or leave out the maple extract.
- Truly a cake that will have your company talking about for a long time. It’s that good.
- Each bite melts in your mouth.
Gather these ingredients:
- Flour (you can use all purpose or whole wheat)
- Baking powder + baking soda + salt
- Cinnamon + cardamom (this really makes the cake delicious, so don’t skip it)
- Ripe bananas
- Granulated sugar, light brown sugar + turbinado sugar (optional, if you frost the cake)
- Eggs
- Sour cream
- Vegetable oil
- Vanilla extract
- Zucchini
You need a good hour to bake the cake, and then let it cool before frosting it.
Best Maple Frosting ever
Ingredients for maple frosting:
- Packed brown sugar
- Butter + 2% milk
- Maple extract
- Confectioners’ sugar (powdered sugar)
How do you make a zucchini banana cake?
Print the full recipe below!
- Grease a 9×13 pan and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cardamom, and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the mashed bananas, granulated sugar, brown sugar, egg, sour cream, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract. Using stand mixer, mix until well combined for 1-2 minutes. Add in the flour mixture and mix.
- Don’t skip this step: Place the zucchini on a paper towel and squeeze the liquid out of it; add it to the batter.
- Pour the batter into cake pan. Sprinkle top with turbinado sugar (optional, especially if you choose to add frosting). Bake for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when placed in the center. Cool before frosting.
- For frosting the cake: Combine brown sugar, butter and milk in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat; cook and stir until thickened. Remove from heat; stir in maple extract. Cool to lukewarm.
- Gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until frosting reaches spreading consistency. Frost the cake.
Tips and substitutions:
- The riper the bananas, the better (sweeter) the banana flavor.
- Optional to leave out the cardamom, but we do love the flavor of this spice!
- You can use a regular cream cheese frosting if you don’t like maple.
- Make the cake ahead and freeze (without the frosting).
- Completely defrost before frosting.
- Store the cake covered with plastic wrap on the counter for up to 3 days.
This cake is a fall cake. You can even bake the cake and freeze half, and frost each half before serving!
I love to turn my oven on, now that the mornings are nice and cool.
Who says no to a good bite of cake? :)
More zucchini cake recipes:
Get the Recipe:
Zucchini Banana Cake with Maple Frosting
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, you can also use whole wheat flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp cardamom
- 3 large ripe bananas mashed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- ¼ cup sour cream
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cup shredded zucchini, leave skin on
- 3 Tbsp turbinado sugar, optional
Maple Frosting
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- ½ cup butter, cubed
- ¼ cup 2% milk
- 1 tsp maple extract
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, + more, if needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 pan and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cardamom, and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the mashed bananas, granulated sugar, brown sugar, egg, sour cream, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract. Using stand mixer, mix until well combined for 1-2 minutes. Add in the flour mixture and mix for 1-2 more minutes.
- Place the zucchini on a paper towel and squeeze the liquid out of it; add it to the batter.
- Pour the batter into cake pan. Sprinkle top with turbinado sugar (optional, especially if you choose to add frosting). Bake for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when placed in the center. Cool on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes before frosting.
- For frosting, combine brown sugar, butter and milk in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat; cook and stir until thickened, 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in maple extract. Cool to lukewarm.
- Gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until frosting reaches spreading consistency. Frost the cake.
- Store the cake covered with plastic wrap on the counter for up to 3 days. The cake also freezes well; freeze before frosting. Completely defrost before frosting.
This is a wonderfully moist and delicious cake. I baked mine in a bundt pan at 325 (my oven runs hot) for about 60 minutes. Just until a wood skewer came out clean, checking every 5 minutes or so because over baking is the worst😄 For the frosting, I only let the stove top mixture cool for a few minutes, added SIFTED powdered sugar at a reduced amount of 1 2/3 cup. This was so the consistency was a little looser than traditional frosting. I kept a burner on low and intermittently warmed my frosting so as I dripped spoonfuls over my cooled cake it would slowly drip and set without overflowing the edges of my cake plate. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as we did.
I had to leave my cake in the oven a little longer it looks so beautiful nice and high I’ll take it out 10 minutes later part of it was flat LOL I wonder if my daughter mixed it too much haven’t tried it yet but the icing pretty yummy
Do you have suggestions for an alternate icing?
You can use a cream cheese frosting – that would be great!
I have made this cake 3x already this summer and have saved it in my google drive so I wont lose this recipe!
Not sure why anyone would not give this a 5star- I would give it 10 if I could!
Now I am off to make it for the 4th time!
thanks for sharing this recipe!!!
can you use yellow squash ?
Hi Donna, just thought I’d share that I’ve been baking “zucchini” cakes etc interchangeably with my shredded yellow squash with equal success. 😉
Do you think you could freeze this cake? with the icing, or no?
Yes, you can freeze it. I would not add the frosting until ready to serve.
Cake was very good but 30 minutes is no where near long enough baking time. I left in for 45 minutes and it could of used another 10-15 minutes as the center was still not set. I bake a lot so i dont think its an oven issue
Thanks! Everyone oven is different. That’s why we always check with the toothpick :) I added a bit extra time :)
This was soooo good! Super moist and flavorful. It doesn’t need the frosting, but that sure is good. Quite sweet but great with coffee. I’ll be making it again.
What is a good non dairy substitute for the sour cream?
I’ve never tried this, but you can buy non-dairy Greek yogurt!