Banana cake with cream cheese frosting

This banana cake changed my life. I'm a born and bred banana bread lover and thanks to my Mums incredible recipe I never knew this love could be challenged. Until this recipe came along...

Banana bread is stodgy, comforting and best served warm from the oven slathered with butter. But this cake is light, moist and keeps well for 3 days or so, the perfect tea time treat!

The blacker your bananas, the better and this is the case for this cake recipe too. If your bananas aren't ripe enough then pop them in the freezer overnight and when they come out they will blacken pretty quickly. I also freeze my black bananas if I only have 1 or 2 until I have enough for a cake.

In my opinion cake is always better covered with frosting and I LOVE cream cheese frosting. People always comment on how tricky it can be to make but I make mine slightly differently so check out my recipe below for my own no fail version.

I've made this cake a number of times now and it always comes out great. I normally use my kitchenaid for cakes but as long as you cream your butter and sugar well enough then you can use a bowl and spoon too. The cream cheese frosting needs to be refrigerated ideally (my EHO recommends this frosting only be kept at room temp for 4hrs max) so you can either keep the cake in a cool place or use a standard buttercream if the cake is being left out for longer.

Cake ingredients

• 3 very large bananas or 4 standard size bananas - over ripe and mashed in a bowl
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 375g plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 175g soft unsalted butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 225g soft brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 350ml buttermilk - if you don't have buttermilk use whole milk soured with white wine vinegar or lemon juice (345ml milk + 1 tsp juice or vinegar left for 15mins to sour)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cream Cheese frosting

• 100g soft unsalted butter
• 150g cold cream cheese
• 400g icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 275f or 140c. Line 2 x 8" tins with greaseproof paper.
2. In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, gently whisk flour, bicarb soda and salt; set aside. Whisking replaces the need to sift as I seem to be allergic to sieves (!) but make sure you use a big bowl before whisking to avoid a powdery mess (alternatively you can sieve)
4. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light, fluffy and pale.
5. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
6. Beat in the flour mixture alternating with the buttermilk.
7. Stir in banana mixture.
8. Pour batter into baking tins and bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 1hr 15mins is normally perfect for my oven.
9. For the frosting, cream the butter until smooth and creamy.
10. Beat in vanilla and lemon juice.
11. Add icing sugar and beat on low speed until combined, your icing might be a bit stiff at this point but the cream cheese will loosen it up.
12. Add the cold cream cheese at the end. Adding it at the end prevents you from overbeating it which can make it runny.
13. Spread on cooled cake and serve.