Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: The combination of banana, chocolate, and peanut butter is incredible. I love it SO much.
Texture: The cake is ridiculously moist and tender with bites of mini chocolate chips throughout. The frosting is ultra creamy, luscious, and smooth. Every bite makes your mouth happy.
Ease: Relatively easy as far as homemade cakes go, just get ready to make a bit of a mess.
Appearance: Simple and beautiful.
Pros: Everyone in my family loved this cake! It’s SO much better than any store-bought cake and pretty easy too.
Cons: Not exactly calorie-free 😉
Would I make this again? Absolutely.
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This is probably because most cakes are bland, cloying, and lacking in contrasting textures.
They sure are pretty and impressive, though. And sometimes a cake is just necessary for something to feel like a real celebration. Even if you’re just celebrating the fact that it’s the weekend!
So every once in a while I can find the inspiration to create a new cake recipe.
We had some very ripe bananas laying in the fruit basket so I figured a banana cake would be perfect. Because sometimes banana bread just doesn’t hit the spot.
What goes best with bananas? Chocolate and peanut butter of course!
This cake recipe is pretty simple and straightforward. If you’re someone who LOVES frosting, or if you plan to decorate with this frosting, then I would suggest doubling the buttercream ingredients.
Otherwise I think you’ll adore this recipe just like we do!!
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Ingredients
For the cake::
- 2 1/2 cups (317 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 sticks unsalted butter (227 grams), at room temperature
- 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (113 grams) sour cream
- 1 1/3 cups (300 grams) mashed overripe bananas, from about 4 medium bananas
- 1 1/4 cups miniature chocolate chips
For the frosting::
- 2 sticks unsalted butter (227 grams), at room temperature
- 1 cup (270 grams) creamy peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 1/2 cups (313 grams) powdered sugar, sifted
- Chocolate chips, for garnish, optional
Instructions
For the cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 8-inch round cake pans.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla and then the eggs, one at a time. On low speed beat in half the dry ingredients then the sour cream and bananas. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Divide the batter among the prepared pans. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the cakes are golden brown and pull away from the edges. Cool in the pans for 15 minutes before flipping onto cooling racks to cool completely. Refrigerate until ready to frost. The colder the cake, the easier it will be to frost. You can even pop the cake in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill.
For the frosting:
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and peanut butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla, salt, and powdered sugar and continue beating until the frosting is smooth and fluffy.
To assemble:
- Place one cake layer on a cake turntable or cake stand. For a smooth and even frosting coverage, use a pastry bag and open tip to pipe a generous ring of the frosting around the top edge of the cake layer. Fill up the frosting ring with additional frosting, spreading to create an even layer. Place the other cake layer upside-down on top of the frosting so that the top of the cake is nice and flat. With an offset spatula, spread the remaining frosting evenly all over the cake, smoothing the edges. Place chocolate chips along the bottom of the cake for garnish. Serve or cover and store in the fridge for up to 2 days. Let come to room temperature for an hour before serving.
This recipe was originally published in 2014 and recently updated with new photos, weight measurements, and improved directions. Photos by Jess Larson.
Tastes like a piece of banana bread smothered in peanut butter- incredible!!!
Hi! I recently made the Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting. Everything seemed to be goin fine until after the bake. One pan came out fine, the other was mushy and undercooked. Same oven, cooked at the same time, and the edges were browned and separating from the pan edge on both pans. Appeared to be okay when I removed them from the oven. I noticed the one that ended up being undercooked was dishing out as it sat on the rack. Ends up it was due to the under doneness.
Possible issues I might have caused:
Too many bananas? I used 4, and they were on the large size. (What would the proper, measured amount of mushed bananas be for this recipe?)
The eggs were extra large rather than large.
I only had dark brown sugar.
Thankfully this was a trial attempt before I make this cake for a party on the 20th! The taste of the cake was wonderful.
Sincerely,
Bruce DeBord
Hi Bruce! Thanks for your feedback! I just updated the mashed bananas to include measurement in grams. Assuming that you’re mixing your ingredients properly, it sounds to me like you may have a cool spot in your oven as to why one cake wasn’t fully baked. Have you ever done the Bread Test?
Bread Test: Place an even layer of slices of plain white sandwich bread on the middle rack of a 350°F oven. Bake for a few minutes, or until toasty. When you pull the bread out, you should be able to see which slices got the toastiest, or where the hot spots exist in your oven.
If your bread is evenly toasted, then great! You may not have to worry much about hot spots. If you have a few pieces significantly darker than others, then you know where your hot and cold spots are located. In that case, it’s probably a good habit to rotate your pans halfway through baking any recipe.
If that’s not the case, did you use two different types of pans? If you had issues with both cakes not baking properly, I would worry about your eggs and dark brown sugar; however, as one turned out completely fine, it really sounds like it may just be your oven. Please let me know what you find out!
Delicious and rich. Moist and perfect. We loved this cake. Made it for my boyfriend’s birthday.
Thanks so much for using our recipe to celebrate with! We appreciate you taking the time to comment 🙂
How many eggs? Not listed
Eggs is listed in the ingredients right below the vanilla 🙂
This cake is HANDS DOWN my favorite cake (to make and eat!) My family practically begs me to make this! Super moist and full of banana flavor. The chocolate chips are the perfect addition as well. The peanut butter frosting is now a staple in my kitchen! I usually do peanut butter frosting in-between the layers & then do HTH Chocolate Buttercream frosting for the entire cake – def recommend! Make this recipe – you will NOT regret it!!!!!
Isn’t that frosting amazing?! So glad you enjoyed this recipe!
My cake came out SO moist and delicious. I used semi sweet regular sized chocolate chips(only 1 cup), and ended up having to use country crock lol Welp my cake was amazing, BUT my icing didn’t come out correctly bc of the incorrect butter (it kept trying to separate, and I had to add way more powdered sugar. Even then, it didn’t want to become a real icing, so, even tho the wrong consistency, the flavor was on point! My fiance, my daughter and I all loved it!!!
I’m thrilled your cake still turned out delicious! Happy it was a hit! 🙂
I used coconut sugar (no brown) , monkfruit (no refined white) ,powdered erythritol instead of powdered sugar and grassfed butter a my healthy alternatives and the cake turned out magnificent!
And I used almond flour.
Look’s sooo good yummmmy!! I’m going to try and make this on my birthday 12-26 thank you for the recipe xoxo thank ya love ♡SweetApplePie♡
Hi Tessa,
Can I use plain yoghurt instead of sour cream?
Thanks.
I actually made this cake yesterday. I’m afraid this recipe is a mishmash of elements that don’t coexist in harmony flavour wise. The sponge is way too rich for a frosted cake, and the chocolate chips really unnecessary. The peanut butter frosting is so excessive and would be more balanced out with genoise sponge layers instead. Or just a plain sponge cake. This cake is overall too sweet and rich and lacks finesse. Of course not everybody likes the same thing. My review is for those who like balanced flavours that aren’t competing with one another, and also for those who don’t want their arteries clogged for such little reward.
Have you made this recipe with gluten free flour?
Just wonder if I am able to freeze this cake after it is assembled?