Banana Birthday Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe - Sweet Mouth Joy (2024)

Published: May 9, 2021 · Modified: May 23, 2023 by Kachina · This post may contain affiliate links.

Let's celebrate with this deliciously decadent banana birthday cake with cream cheese frosting! Top with an optional chocolate ganache drip for even more birthday goodness!

✏️ Why you'll love this recipe

This banana round cake has four layers of moist banana walnut cake frosted with vanilla cream cheese buttercream and topped with an optional chocolate ganache drip.

Decorate with more crunchy walnuts for an easy cake design that looks classy! This banana walnut birthday cake is sure to be a show-stopper but is actually easier than it looks.

This best ever banana birthday cake recipe is adapted from my favourite banana bread recipe (like a banana bread birthday cake!). It uses oil and no buttermilk for a simple soft banana cake with added texture from the nuts.

🥘 Ingredients

This banana birthday cake recipe calls for the following ingredients:

1. Banana walnut cake:

• Bananas: medium, peeled, very ripe (see banana ripening tips).
• Eggs
• Light brown soft sugar
• Vegetable oil: or other neutral flavoured oil e.g. canola, sunflower.
• All-purpose plain flour: sieve for a smooth cake batter.
• Baking powder: always check the expiry date before use or the cake won’t rise.
• Bicarbonate soda
• Ground mixed spice: or pumpkin spice.
• Salt
• Vanilla extract: use extract or paste for the best flavour.
• Walnuts: chopped (plus extra for decorating).

2. Cream cheese frosting:

• Unsalted butter: room temperature for a softened butter that’s easier to beat.
• Powdered icing sugar: sieve your confectioners’ sugar for a smooth frosting.
• Full-fat cream cheese: room temperature for ease of beating.
• Vanilla extract
• Salt

3. Chocolate ganache drip (optional):

• Heavy cream: e.g. double or whipping cream.
• Milk chocolate: from the baking aisle.

See the recipe card for quantities.

Top tip: For accuracy, it’s best to weigh your ingredients rather than using cups.

♻️ Substitutions / Variations

Ingredient substitutions

For the best banana cake flavour, use overripe bananas. If you don't have any, you can bake unripe bananas on a low heat in the oven for 15mins.

Alternatively, you can put your unripe bananas in a paper bag with other ripe ethylene gas producing fruit, such as ripe apples or other ripe bananas, for 1-2 days to ripen them. Check out my blog post on how to ripen bananas quickly for more info.

You can use any neutral-flavoured oil for this banana layer cake recipe.

You can swap the plain all-purpose flour for same quantity of self-raising flour. Exclude the bicarbonate of soda and reduce the baking powder by ½ teaspoon (i.e. use only 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder).

You can swap the milk chocolate ganache drip for a dark chocolate ganache by using 85 ml (5 ½ tbsp) heavy cream and 75g (½ cup) dark semi-sweet chocolate instead.

Flavours

I love the taste of this banana nut cake using walnuts, but you can also switch these for another nut such as pecans or brazil nuts.

For a more chocolate banana cake, add 150 g (1 cup) of chocolate chips to your cake batter.

Try drizzling over a tasty sauce, like salted rum dulce de leche – a delicious boozy treat that goes really well with banana!

Frosting options

Instead of a vanilla cream cheese icing, try this easy vanilla buttercream or caramel buttercream instead.

Alternatively, give this Bailey's chocolate ganache frosting a go for a truly decadent adult birthday cake idea!

In the photos here, I’ve used chocolate buttercream to decorate the top (like the one in this recipe for chocolate cupcakes), but this optional and you can use the cream cheese frosting for these swirls instead for ease.

Equipment alternatives

When I make this drip cake as a four-layer cake, I usually bake all the cake batter in two 6-inch round pans. I then cut the two sponges in half to give four layers.

If you have three round 6-inch cake pans, you can instead spit your batter evenly between the three and bake for 5-10mins less time. This will give you a three-layer cake without the need to cut you sponges in half.

I usually use a teaspoon to make the ganache drip on this cake. However, you can also use a squeeze bottle (like the ones they use for sauces and condiments), a piping bag with a small round piping tip or the corner cut off of a plastic sandwich / freezer bag.

💭 Top tips

• Mix your banana cake ingredients slowly, adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. This helps to reduce lumps.
• Thoroughly mash your bananas before adding them to your cake batter. You won’t be able to get rid of the banana lumps completely, but this will give you a smoother batter.
• Your banana walnut cake sponges are cooked once they’re risen, springy to touch and an inserted toothpick or skewer comes out clean from the center of the cake.
• After baking, leave your banana cake layers in the tins to cool for at least 15mins before removing them from the cake pan onto a wire rack to cool. This speeds up the cooling process and stops your cake from baking further trapped in the hot tin.
• To get smooth tops on your cake layers, I recommend using cake baking belts, sometimes called cake strips, when baking your cakes. You may need to bake for an extra 5-10mins if using these.
• Alternatively, cut off any peaks that may form.
• To decorate your banana layer cake, it's easier with a cake turntable, a tall cake scraper and an offset spatula. That way you can create smooth sides to your cake much easier.
• For the ganache drip, do a test drip first to see if the temperature and consistency are right. Your test drip should run down the cake sides but not hit the bottom.
• Give your banana birthday cake a crushed walnut border around the frosted cake base for a cute finish.

❔ Recipe FAQs

🧁 Other goodies

Looking for more banana recipes? Why not check out my recipe for a vegan moist banana bread – it’s a delicious and simple crowd-pleaser!

Or if you’re looking for some tasty cake recipes, why not check out my Oreo drip cake or Biscoff drip cake? Both make great party birthday cakes!

You'll also love this chocolate orange cake - a really simple and easy cake, perfect for a more low-key cake joy.

Other Related Recipes:

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📋 Recipe