This easy homemade banana cake with chocolate icing is a birthday party classic. The banana layer cake is quick and easy to make and pairs perfectly with the chocolate american buttercream.
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Banana Cake with Chocolate Buttercream
I feel as if this cake is a childhood memory for most kids that grew up in New Zealand. Homemade Banana cake, covered in what we affectionately refer to as "shitty chocolate icing". You know the stuff - icing sugar, cocoa, a little bit of butter, and then a little bit of boiling water which inevitably turns into adding too much, having to add more icing sugar, overshooting that, adding more water, etc etc. The best. We often had this as our birthday cakes when we were kids, but would have 'plain' icing instead that we were allowed to colour ourselves - I have very strong memories of managing to get half a bottle of yellow food colouring into a bowl of icing and having THE most bright yellow cake ever. It was awesome.
Turns out Rich has even more ties to homemade banana cake than I do - he went to boarding school and quite often his mum would make him a banana cake with chocolate icing to have in his 'tuck box'. Lucky for him, I tend to be useless at remembering to use bananas up before they go brown, so banana cake/bread/shortbread happens extremely frequently in our house.
The Best Banana Layer Cake
Rich also happens to not be a huge fan of buttercream. I have learnt to turn my back while he scrapes most of it off a cupcake into the bin. For this reason, (because he is the primary banana related baked goods consumer in our house), the ratio of this cake is mainly cake:not much buttercream. It is essentially two banana cakes, glued together with a teeny bit of buttercream. I like to run a line of piped buttercream between the two layers to tidy things up, then load up the top with icing sugar, pop on some rosemary, and we are away laughing. He requests it for his birthday every year, which makes life significantly easier on my part!
The cake itself is super simple. It is a great go-to. (as are most recipes from the Edmonds cookbook). If my bananas are super ripe, and I would like minimal dishes, I throw them in the stand mixer with the creamed butter/sugar mixture rather than mashing them by hand. If they aren't crazy ripe, mashing them by hand helps.
Easy Chocolate Buttercream
The buttercream is a slightly more fancy variation of "Shitty chocolate buttercream". I like using butter straight out of the fridge and 'softening' it using the mixer, as opposed to softening it before you use it. It gives you a slightly colder finished product that is easier to handle. However I haven't tried this without a stand mixer, so if you are using an electric beater, it may be easier to have the butter already soft. The recipe here will leave you with some buttercream left over, which I figure is probably helpful as most people like a slightly higher ratio of buttercream to cake than this, so feel free to spread it on the top/sides. If you make this into a four layer cake (and slice the cakes into two), doubling the buttercream recipe would be beneficial.
This is a fairly large recipe, so if you only have a couple of bananas, or are looking for something smaller, halving it will work beautifully.
Ps how great is the crown cake stand?!? My Mum got it for me the last time I was home, from a teeny pottery shop near Nelson (my hometown). Its a one of a kind, and is inspired by Max's crown from "Where the wild things are". It also turns up the other way and can be used as a bowl! I LOVE it! Thanks Mama Bear! xx
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Answers to your baking questions
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- baking in grams
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Recipe for Banana Cake with Chocolate Buttercream
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Banana cake with chocolate buttercream
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
- Category: Cakes
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: New Zealand
Description
This easy homemade banana cake with chocolate icing is a birthday party classic. The banana layer cake is quick and easy to make and pairs perfectly with the chocolate american buttercream.
Ingredients
Banana cake
- 250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 350g sugar
- 4 eggs
- 4 ripe bananas, mashed
- 2 tsp (8grams) baking soda
- 60g whole milk
- 500g All-purpose flour
- 2 tsp (8 grams) baking powder
Chocolate Buttercream
- 250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 500g Icing Sugar/powdered sugar
- 50g Cocoa Powder
- 1 Tbsp Vanilla
- 3 Tbsp (45ml) whole milk
Instructions
BANANA CAKE
- Preheat the oven to 350°f/180°c. Grease two 8 inch cake tins.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a bowl with an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add bananas and beat until incorporated. Add eggs one at a time, ensuring bowl is well scraped down and mixture is well combined.
- Heat milk in the microwave, or a small pan until boiling. Add baking soda to milk, and add to the mix, mixing until well combined.
- Sift flour and baking powder, and add to the mixture. Mix briefly until just combined. Divide between the two prepared tins, and bake 30-40 minutes until lightly golden, and a tester inserted in the middle of a cake comes out clean. A ramekin of water in the oven with the cakes will help generate steam and reduce doming. If you don't mind the cake being a little more dense, you can also place a clean tea towel over the cake soon after it comes out of the oven and press down gently to help lessen the dome. Cool in their tins for 10 minutes, then carefully remove and allow to completely cool on a wire rack.
BUTTERCREAM
Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer or with an electric beater until pale and fluffy. (if you are using a stand mixer, I find it best to 'soften' the butter from cold with the mixer). Add vanilla, and sifted icing sugar and cocoa, and beat until well incorporated. Add the milk and beat on high until whipped and fluffy. Transfer to a large piping bag fitted with a large round tip (I used an Ateco #808)
ASSEMBLY
Level off the cooled cakes with a sharp bread knife or cake leveler. Place one cake right side up on a turntable or cake stand, and pipe a thick layer of buttercream onto the surface of the cake. Spread out with a small offset spatula, then place the second cake upside down onto the buttercream. Ensure that they are well aligned, then using the piping bag, pipe a continuous line of buttercream around the middle of the cake, where the two layers meet. You will likely have some buttercream left over so feel free to use this on the top of the cake. Dust top of the cake liberally with icing sugar, and garnish with your favourite herbs (I like rosemary). Enjoy!
Notes
Cake adapted from "Edmonds Cookbook"
Comments
Dhrubaa De Mukherjee says
This is brilliant! Will have to try this too!
Erin @ Cloudy Kitchen says
It's super easy! and I dunno about you but I always have extra bananas hanging around!
Ashleigh says
Going to make this for my sons first birthday next week! Just wondering if it would be okay to add vanilla extract?
Erin Clarkson says
Yes you definitely can!
Sophie says
Love this recipe! Made it GF by subbing flour for 250g ground almonds and 250 g bakels GF plain flour and it was perfect. Banana cake with choccy buttercream icing - so nostalgic and so delicious!
Amara says
Love this fancy version of the classic Edmonds banana cake! Making it a layered cake automatically makes it impressive.
Hana says
Faultless as always with Erin's recipes, thanks!
Sara says
Hi there-making this recipe for my Wild One themed baby’s first birthday. Question-you don’t have salt listed in the ingredients, but noticed you do for other cakes. Was it inadvertently omitted? Thanks for the great recipes, I appreciate all the detail!
Erin Clarkson says
Hi! Ah yes probably! use about 1/2 tsp kosher salt!
Rachel Osborne says
Great recipe, delicious cake!
Emma says
I love this banana cake and the icing is incredible, my go to family birthday cake 🎂
Ashleigh says
Absolutely love this recipe. On high rotation in our house! Thank you!
Emma Drew says
I love this recipe and used it again this weekend for my daughter's birthday along with your buttercream recipe to ice the outside
Sasha Ward-Faint says
Do you add the dissolved soda milk mixture hot to rest of the mixture? Or do you wait till it's cooled down? Or does the boiling milk cool down once soda is added...
Erin Clarkson says
Hi, I have always added it in hot 🙂
Amber says
What a great recipe! I’ve made some subs (swapping in some sugar and adding some hazelnut flour) and it still works perfectly! It’s now my go-to banana cake recipe
Erin Clarkson says
Hi, sounds like you may have used the wrong sized pan? Or an oven issue? It definitely shouldn't be raw in the middle!
Hannah says
I definitely used the right size pan. I double checked after to be sure. I'm not exactly sure what happened, because I never have problems with your recipes. It's possible my oven is colder, but I need to check. Because I don't necessarily think anything is wrong with your recipe, but I'm really confused what might have happened. The cooked parts are delicious. (Hence me changing the rating.)
When it said ripe bananas, how ripe? And how big a banana?