You’re in for a real treat with this delicious, ultra moist banana pound cake. Every bite is bursting with fresh, real banana flavor and the perfect hint of spice. Finished with a rich and decadent caramel cream cheese glaze, this dreamy pound cake is sure to impress at any occasion.
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Why You Need to Make This Recipe
- Banana lovers, rejoice! Classic pound cake gets a banana-fueled makeover with this recipe. Like traditional pound cake, this recipe is dense and rich, but the banana gives it a wonderfully fresh flavor.
- Perfect for using those frozen bananas. Are you like me and have way too many frozen bananas on hand at any given moment? This banana bundt cake recipe will help you clear that freezer space in the tastiest way.
- No dry cake here. Thanks to all that fresh banana and a hefty dose of buttermilk, this fruity pound cake is perfectly moist.
- Easily serves a crowd. As a rich, dense cake, a small slice goes a long way, so you can get 12-16 servings from one batch.
Bonus: If you love this banana pound cake, you will also adore my bourbon banana bread. Talk about best banana bread ever!
Ingredients
In our banana pound cake ingredient list, you may have noticed there’s no baking soda or baking powder. That’s not a mistake.
Traditional pound cake does not use any chemical leavening. We give the cake its lift by a lot of beating. This is called physical leavening.
The beating times may seem a little long, but that's exactly what we need to incorporate enough air into the batter, resulting in a final product that's dense as a pound cake should be but not so much that it feels like a brick in your stomach.
If you don't have any buttermilk on hand, I recommend you make your own rather than substituting with regular milk. I love the subtle tangy flavor buttermilk adds, and it's easy to make.
We pour ½ tablespoon lemon juice or distilled white vinegar into ½ cup whole milk and let the mixture sit for five to 10 minutes. After that quick sitting period, we have our buttermilk substitute.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: To start, we mix together our flour, salt and cinnamon, and then sift the mixture into another bowl. We set aside the bowl for now.
Step 2: Now we add our dark brown sugar, white sugar, butter and vanilla extract to a large mixing bowl (photo 1) and give it a good beating for five minutes until it's light and fluffy like so (photo 2).
Step 3: From here, we beat in our eggs. Rather than add our eggs all at once, we beat in one at a time just until combined (photos 3 and 4).
Step 4: With our eggs incorporated, we now alternate between adding our flour mixture (photo 5) with our buttermilk (photo 6).
Step 5: And now we give our batter one last round of beating. This will take about five minutes with a stand mixer or six to eight minutes with a hand mixer. The batter will be thick and fluffy (photo 7) and then we stir in our mashed banana (photo 8).
Step 6: Just like that, our batter is ready. We pour the batter into a well-floured bundt pan and bake (photos 9 and 10).
Step 7: While our banana pound cake bakes, we prepare our caramel cream cheese glaze. For this step, we add cream cheese, caramel and vanilla extract to a mixing bowl (photo 11) and beat until it's light and fluffy (photo 12). Then, we add powdered sugar about ½ cup at a time and beat (photo 13).
Once we incorporate all the powdered sugar, we add a little milk to give it the perfect drizzling consistency (photo 14). We now have our glaze to top our banana bundt cake.
Step 8: Once our cake finishes baking, we allow it to cool directly in the bundt pan (photo 15) and then allow it to finish cooling on a wire rack. Looks delicious, huh?
How to Serve
Once the cake cools, drizzle or pour the glaze all over. For a drizzle as pictured, I used a squeeze bottle to get those fine lines, but you are welcome to pour it directly on the cake if you'd like more glaze in each bite.
While the cake is delicious on its own, I especially love serving this banana pound cake with a scoop of ice cream. I paired this cake with a maple-rum ice cream and topped it with my bourbon caramel sauce but replaced the bourbon with rum. My Baileys ice cream or butterscotch ice cream would also be delicious.
Recipe FAQs
We have a few options for freezing. This comes down to personal preference and how you like to use your frozen bananas.
Mashed: If your frozen bananas are reserved for baking, this option is great because the banana is ready to go once thawed. Simply store in an airtight freezer bag.
Whole peeled: Using this method, we first peel the bananas and store the whole bananas in a flat layer in a freezer bag.
Whole unpeeled: With this method, we place the bananas right in the freezer or store in a freezer bag. To make peeling easier, I recommend giving the bananas about 10 minutes or so to thaw.
Sliced: If you like using frozen bananas for smoothies or cocktails, this method is for you. Like the above methods, store the sliced bananas in a freezer bag.
Overripe bananas are much sweeter and more flavorful, which makes for a superior baked good. During the ripening process, starches convert to sugar to give the overripe banana that extra sweet taste. I like to let my bananas turn nearly black and then freeze them or add to a baked good right away.
To sift, you can pass the flour mixture through than actual sifter or fine-mesh sieve, or you can give it a good whisk. If you'd like to see this in action, check out this video that shows the three ways to sift flour.
We want to make sure the cake is stored in an airtight environment to keep it moist. I recommend keeping it under a cake dome. The cream cheese glaze has enough sugar in it to act as a preservative, so it will keep just fine in room temperature. This banana pound cake is best consumed within three days.
Expert Tips
- Make sure your butter, buttermilk and eggs are at room temperature. Since we rely on physical leavening, we need to properly incorporate the ingredients, and room-temperature ingredients mix much better than cold ingredients.
- Likewise, it's essential to soften the cream cheese. If the cream cheese is cold and hard, we'll be left with lots of lumps instead of a fluffy texture.
- Do not scoop a measuring cup into your flour and white sugar to measure. Instead, spoon the ingredients into your measuring cup and then level with a knife. Scooping can pack in too much of your ingredient and throw off the entire recipe.
- When beating the sugar and butter, periodically stop the timer and scrape the butter off the side of the bowl. Turn the timer back on when you continue to whip.
Perfect Pairing
I love a bold barley wine with banana desserts. Considering how hefty pound cake is, we want a big beer that can stand up to our dense, rich dessert, and barley wine does just that. Plus, you'll love how those caramel, nutty and dried fruit notes pair with the banana.
If you're craving a glass of wine, I'm a big fan of a tawny port. Similar to the barley wine, this is a bold wine with caramel- and toffee-like notes.
Or maybe you're in the mood for a cocktail. For the spring and summer months, I love my Painkiller cocktail. Made with fresh orange juice, pineapple juice, cream of coconut and rich dark rum, you'll love the tropical flavors with the fruity banana.
However, if it's the fall or winter, pair this banana pound cake with my chai old fashioned. The cozy chai spice notes and warming bourbon with the banana and cinnamon are wonderful together.
If you love banana sweets, I hope you do yourself a favor and make this banana pound cake. I truly can't think of a more perfect dessert for fellow banana lovers.
Cheers!
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Banana Pound Cake With Caramel Cream Cheese Glaze
Equipment
- Stand or hand mixer
- 12-cup bundt pan
- Foil
Ingredients
Banana Pound Cake
- 3 cups all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups packed dark brown sugar
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 1 cup butter softened
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or paste
- 7 eggs room temperature
- 1 cup buttermilk shaken before measuring
- 2 cups mashed overripened bananas
- Cooking spray
Caramel Cream Cheese Glaze
- 4 ounces full-fat cream cheese softened
- ¼ cup caramel sauce
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
Banana Pound Cake
- Heat oven to 325 degrees.
- In a mixing bowl, stir together the 3 cups of flour, ground cinnamon and salt. Sift into another bowl and set aside.
- Add the dark brown sugar, white sugar, butter and vanilla extract to a separate large mixing bowl. Using a stand or hand mixer, cream the ingredients over medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about five minutes. If using a hand mixer, it might take an extra minute or so. From time to time, scrape the butter off the side of the bowl to ensure everything is well-incorporated.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time just until combined. Once you beat in all the eggs, add about ½ cup of the flour mixture into the batter and beat until combined on low speed. Beat in a splash of the buttermilk. Repeat the process until both are fully incorporated into the batter, ending with the buttermilk.
- On medium-high speed, beat the batter for five minutes with a stand mixer or about six to eight minutes using a hand mixer. The batter will be thick and fluffy. Stir in the mashed bananas.
- Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan, including the middle. The flour makes a big difference in keeping the finished cake from sticking, so don’t skip this step. It helps to cover the pan with plastic wrap after flouring and give it a good shake to make sure it's well-coated. Pour in the batter and smooth on top.
- Bake for 30 minutes. Loosely tent the top of the bundt pan with foil to prevent excessive browning. Continue to bake until a long skewer comes out clean, about 50 more minutes. Make sure you insert the skewer all the way to the bottom of the pan to check for doneness. Allow to cool in the pan for an hour or up to two hours. Run a knife along the edge of the bundt pan to loose the cake. Invert on a wire rack to finish cooling. Drizzle with cream cheese glaze once cool. See below for directions.
- Move to a cake stand when ready to serve. Store under a cake dome to create an airtight environment. If desired, serve with homemade caramel or your favorite ice cream, such as this Baileys ice cream or butterscotch ice cream with candied pecans. Enjoy!
Caramel Cream Cheese Glaze
- Beat together the cream cheese, caramel and vanilla extract until light and fluffy.
- Add about ½ cup powdered sugar. Beat until combined. Add another ½ cup powdered and beat again. Repeat until all the powdered sugar is incorporated. If necessary, scrape the edge of the bowl from time to time.
- Add the milk and beat until it becomes a drizzling consistency. Pour all over the cooled cake. Enjoy!
Notes
- Make sure your butter, buttermilk and eggs are at room temperature. Since we rely on physical leavening, we need to properly incorporate the ingredients, and room-temperature ingredients mix much better than cold ingredients.
- Likewise, it's essential to soften the cream cheese. If the cream cheese is cold and hard, we'll be left with lots of lumps instead of a fluffy texture.
- Do not scoop a measuring cup into your flour and white sugar to measure. Instead, spoon the ingredients into your measuring cup and then level with a knife. Scooping can pack in too much of your ingredient and throw off the entire recipe.
- When beating the sugar and butter, periodically stop the timer and scrape the butter off the side of the bowl. Turn the timer back on when you continue to whip.
- Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Elizabeth says
This pound cake is absolutely delicious! The whole family loved it!
Agnieszka says
This pound cake is spectacular! I love that it uses mashed banana, too.