Banana Walnut Cake with Caramel Frosting leans into everything you love about banana bread, then takes it further ~ deeper flavor, better texture, with a rich caramel finish.
Banana cakes are some of my most irresistible recipes. They range from the snackable little Banana Poppy Seed Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting to my celebration worthy Banana Cake with Nutella Frosting. This banana walnut cake with caramel frosting is right up there with the best of them. Not fluffy like layer cake, not dense like banana bread ~ this lands right in the middle. The walnuts add just enough bite, and the sour cream keeps everything tender for days. And there’s something about the combination of caramel and banana ~ they just belongs together. And it’s a beautiful thing.
Can bananas be too ripe for banana walnut cake?
For this cake, you’re looking for bananas that are speckled or mostly brown, but not collapsed or leaking.
- Bright yellow → useable but they won’t give as much flavor.
- Spotted / brown → ideal (sweet, soft, and aromatic.)
- Black + watery → they’ve gone too far and can make the cake heavy and a little dull.
Freeze your ripe bananas
Got perfectly ripe bananas but no time to bake? Freeze them.
- Peel them first, then freeze whole or in chunks.
- Thaw before using.
- Use everything, including the liquid.
- Frozen bananas can actually add more vivid banana flavor to your banana walnut cake.
The caramel frosting that changes everything
We start with a simple stovetop caramel base for this cooked frosting, which gives it a deep, lightly toasty flavor. A generous sprinkle of walnuts adds crunch and sets off the banana cake beautifully.
Be sure to spread your frosting quickly before it starts to set up. I like to pour it onto the still hot banana cake.
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Banana Walnut Cake with Caramel Frosting
Video
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 large egg
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed (I ended up with about a cup after a thorough mashing)
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, make this a heaping 1/2 cup, measured after chopping
caramel frosting
- 5 Tbsp butter
- 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 8 oz about 1/2 a box confectioner’s sugar
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Set oven to 350F
- Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Beat in the sour cream and the egg.
- Mash the bananas with the back of a fork. Make sure to get the little lumps out. Add the bananas and the vanilla to the butter and sugar and blend well.
- Sift the flour, salt and baking soda and add to the batter. Stir just until combined. Fold in the nuts.
- Spread the batter into an 8×8 or 9×9 square baking pan that’s been sprayed with oil or lined with parchment paper with overlapping ends. The paper will help you remove the cake from the pan for neater cutting.
- Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until a toothpick comes out without wet batter clinging to it. (It will still be moist)
- Let cool before frosting.
- To make the frosting, heat the butter and sugar in a small saucepan until it comes to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Cook for 2 minutes.
- Take off the heat and add the heavy cream, vanilla and salt.
- Beat in the powdered sugar, and continue beating on high until the frosting is thick and glossy. Add a little more cream if it seems too thick, and a little more sugar if it seems too thin.
- Spread thickly on the cooled banana cake.
Nutrition
More baking with bananas
Nutella Banana Bread
Nutella banana bread is moist and chocolatey with ribbons of Nutella swirled right into the batter ~ yum!!
One Banana Banana Bread!
Only got one banana? Make this fabulous one banana banana bread ~ it’s a fan favorite!
Warm Banana Pudding Cake
Warm banana pudding cake is a a riff on Canadian pudding chomeur. Warm cake, toasty pecans, rich maple sauce…the ultimate fall dessert!
Almond Flour Banana Cake
We all have that one banana bread recipe we swear by. This isn’t that. Almond flour banana cake is softer, more tender, and just happens to be gluten and dairy-free. (You’ll be back for seconds.)
Copycat Crumbl Banana Bread Cookies
Copycat Crumbl banana bread cookies are warm and cozy with a thick layer of cream cheese frosting topped with crushed pecans ~ Deeeeeelish!
Bourbon Banana Bread
Bourbon Banana Bread is a rich, moist banana bread made with ripe bananas, sour cream, and a splash of bourbon for deep, warm flavor.
I made this cake earlier today but didn’t have the whipping cream for the frosting and it was still delicious. I went to the grocery store to pick up the cream and now ready to make another one with the frosting to compare. Thank you for sharing the recipe.
Oh wow, you’ll be an expert on this cake Connie, thanks for your input, and good to know it works without the cream.
thx for this recipe, the bananas on my counter are begging to be rescued:) is this really 1 tablespoon vanilla? now following you on bloglovin. tia!
I go a little crazy with the vanilla because I just love it, but feel free to reduce to a more ‘reasonable’ amount 😉 Hope you enjoy this!
Awesome!
Hello! I just made this cake on a whim and LOVED it. So good. But I linked to it on my blog. I could eat the whole pan easily. Thank you for brining this cake into the world.
Thanks so much for letting me know, I’m heading over to your site now. I remember how hard it was to photograph that cake, because all I wanted to do was sit down and eat!
I agree with you. I understand people saying that “nobody’s perfect” but there’s some distance between being not perfect and being casually racist. I was behind her about the diabetes thing. That’s something that could have been handled better by her publicists, but in the end, it’s a personal matter and something a lot of people deal with. The current situation is just a mess.
Anyway, like you said, back to the point. We had bananas foster cake as our wedding cake so obviously we’re big fans of bananas + caramel. I will definitely be trying out this one! Thanks!
ugh, the Paula Deen issue; even I’M a chicken about that one. I didn’t see your FB post or i would have chimed in, but in a way that would have been to basically say this: I don’t think she’s an evil person, but i do strongly believe that after many years of traveling the world and living outside whatever bubble you may have grown up in, you should be careful what you say and also what you think. it’s sad because i read an article the other day which i agree with, and that’s that somehow this whole thing with her has gone from a justified lashing out to good, old-fashioned bullying. and that part i think is sad. i think everyone is entitled to their opinion, though. just i don’t know if everyone is entitled to mean. 🙂 and that’s what i’ll say about that.
i agree that no one knows caramel frosting better than paula. and i think this looks great, so i’m happy you adapted this recipe. truly, there’s nothing ever bad about bananas and walnuts and caramel together, at least not for me. 🙂
I made this tonight and it was delicious! I did change the icing to my taste however, because I knew it would be too sweet for me. I omitted the icing sugar, and added a bit more cream. Once it cool I whipped in some softened butter, but it was still really liquid, so I threw it in the fridge and it hardened up beautifully! Thanks for a great recipe:)
I love banana cakes and that frosting looks so luscious!
omg this tastes so great!
what a luscious frosting! you could slather that on anything and it’d become an instant hit. 🙂