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Banana Cake

Felix Intelegando Updated All recipes

Banana cake is pure retro: a real 80s cake that, like carrot cake, never quite goes out of fashion. This version has no butter or oil. Three ripe bananas and Greek yoghurt give it its sweetness and a soft, even crumb, and it takes about 10 minutes to mix and 30-40 minutes at 180 °C (about 350 °F).

Banana loaf cake dusted with icing sugar on a wooden board, two slices cut to show a soft golden crumb, with a ripe banana beside it
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Banana loaf cake dusted with icing sugar on a wooden board, two slices cut to show a soft golden crumb, with a ripe banana beside it

Recipe

Banana Cake

Prep
10 mins
Cook
40 mins
Total
50 mins

Ingredients

Method

  1. Turn on the oven at 180 ° C.
  2. Whip egg, sugar and vanilla white and foaming.
  3. Mash the bananas with the back of a fork.
  4. Stir banana mash and Greek yogurt in a bowl.
  5. On a separate bowl, mix flour and baking powder together and turn it into the dough. You can use a stirrer to make all the stirring work.
  6. Put together the mixtures on the two bowls and whisk together.
  7. Pour the dough into a bake tin with a greased baking paper and place the mixture on number 6 in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until it does not hang on a meat pin or the like when stuck into the middle part of the cake
  8. Let the cake cool and sprinkle with a thin layer of icing sugar.

Step by step, in pictures

The six main moves from the card, from whisking the eggs to dusting the cooled cake.

  1. Line drawing of a balloon whisk beating a foamy, bubbly mixture in a large mixing bowlWhisk eggs, sugar and vanilla until pale
  2. Line drawing of a fork pressing into peeled bananas in a bowl, with mashed banana around themMash the bananas with a fork
  3. Line drawing of a spoon swirling a creamy mixture in a bowl beside pieces of bananaStir the banana into the yoghurt
  4. Line drawing of a spoon over a bowl holding a mound of flour mixed with a raising agentMix flour and baking powder
  5. Line drawing of a hand tipping a bowl of thick batter into a loaf tin lined with baking paperPour into a lined tin
  6. Line drawing of a hand holding a small sieve that dusts a fine layer of sugar over a loaf cakeDust the cooled cake

What makes this banana cake different?

There is no butter or oil in it. The moisture comes from three ripe bananas and Greek yoghurt, and the batter is built in three bowls: eggs, sugar and vanilla whisked until pale and foamy; banana mashed into the yoghurt; flour stirred together with the baking powder. The three are combined only at the end.

The whisking is the one step not to rush. An electric whisk does the work, and the card says to keep going until the mixture is white and foaming.

The decilitre measures in US cups

The card uses Danish volume measures. 1 dl is 100 ml, a little under half a US cup (236.6 ml). Converted by volume:

  • Sugar, 2½ dl: 250 ml, about 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon
  • Flour, 3½ dl: 350 ml, about 1½ cups
  • Yoghurt, 1 dl: 100 ml, about ⅓ cup plus 1½ tablespoons
  • Oven, 180 °C: 356 °F, so 350 °F on a Fahrenheit dial

These are volume conversions only. The recipe is written by volume, so no gram weights are given here.

Banana cake with chocolate

Chop 100 g (about 3½ oz) of dark chocolate and stir it into the banana and yoghurt in step 4, or fold it in when the bowls are combined in step 6. Everything else stays the same. For a chocolate top instead of icing sugar, spread melted chocolate over the cooled cake.

Gluten-free banana cake

Swap the wheat flour (3½ dl) for 1 dl almond flour plus 2½ dl coconut flour, roughly ⅓ cup plus 1½ tablespoons and 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon. That is the only change the original recipe makes; the method stays the same.

How to store banana cake

Let the cake cool completely, then wrap it or keep it in an airtight container. The original recipe keeps it in the fridge. It can be frozen, but the post notes the texture is not quite the same after freezing.

Banana cake questions

What is the secret to a good banana cake?

This card puts the care in two places: whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla until pale and foamy before anything else goes in, and take the cake out as soon as a skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean, somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes at 180 °C.

How do you make a quick banana cake?

This one takes about 10 minutes to mix. Whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla; mash three bananas into the Greek yoghurt; stir flour and baking powder together; combine the three and bake for 30-40 minutes at 180 °C.

More ways to use ripe bananas

Bananas left over? Try the banana bread, a batch of banana muffins or banana pancakes.

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