Banana Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I love bananas. They’re one of the very few fruits I’ll willingly eat fresh. They only problem is, you buy a bunch and before you eat them all they start to get all bruised and soft and, frankly, gross. I very rarely ever end up finishing an entire bunch before they go bad.

But that’s ok! As they ripen and turn brown, the banana gets more flavorful and aromatic. They texture is awful and mushy, but they make for a great ingredient.

What I do once they’re too ripe for me to eat is I let the bananas get completely brown and then I throw them in the freezer. When I’m ready to make something with them I take them out, thaw them to room temperature and mash them up. You don’t necessarily want to eat them at this point (they’re not bad for you, just not super appetizing)…but then again you don’t straight up eat flour or drink vanilla, either. At least not until they’re made into something delicious.

Ingredients

Difficulty: easy
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Cake

1 ½ cups mashed up overripe bananas – this is likely 3-5 bananas, depending on the size
2 t lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 ½ t baking soda
½ t salt
2 cups sugar
¾ cup butter, softened to room temperature
3 eggs
3 t vanilla
1 ½ cups buttermilk (full fat, not low-fat)

Icing

1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, softened to room temperature
½ cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 ½ t vanilla
3 ½ cups powdered sugar

Directions

Butter and flour a 9” x 12” pan and set it aside.

Maybe a little too much flour, but the cake didn’t stick at all, so it’s all good

With a fork, mix the bananas and lemon juice in bowl.

In a separate bowl, use a whisk to mix together the flour, baking soda and salt.

In a third bowl (sorry!) put the sugar and butter and mix with a hand mixer until they’re well blended. Next, add in the three eggs and vanilla and beat again until that’s all well blended.

Go get your flour mixture, pour about half of it into the egg mixture and blend. Then blend in the buttermilk, then the rest of the flour mixture. You should have a pretty smooth batter at this point.

Finally, add in the banana mixture. You don’t need to use a mixer to mix it in – that’s a little rough on the bananas. Instead, take your whisk and stir it in until it’s completely mixed together. You’ll see chunks of banana in there, and that’s ok – it’s good, in fact.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350 for about 45 – 50 minutes, or until it’s a nice golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.

When you’re about ready to frost, beat together the cream cheese, butter and vanilla with a hand mixer until that’s totally smooth. Then, add in the powdered sugar and beat that until it’s smooth. Tip – don’t put all the powdered sugar in at once or else it’ll go flying everywhere as soon as you turn on the mixer. Instead, put a little in (maybe a third), mix it a little with a wooden spoon so that some of the powdered sugar is covered by the rest of the batter and then turn on the mixer. Repeat this a couple times until all of the sugar is mixed in and you have simple and delicious cream cheese frosting!

Once your cake is cooled to room temperature frost it with your cream cheese frosting (Do not ice it while it’s still warm! If you need to, put the cake in the fridge for a little to cool.) That’s it! You’ll have a moist and delicious banana cake!

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