This Bananas Foster Cake transforms a classic dessert into a delicious layer cake! Banana cake layers, bananas foster filling, and vanilla bean buttercream.
Is it weird to make a cake based on a dessert you’ve never had? It’s a little weird. At least, I don’t think I’ve ever had it. Bananas Foster is not common in this neck of the woods, much to my dismay.
This Bananas Foster Cake was another idea from Ryan (I don’t think he’s ever had the dessert either). Who am I to turn down making a cake that basically consists of bananas, booze, and caramel?
What is Bananas Foster?
Bananas Foster is a dessert consisting of banana halves sautéed in a rum caramel sauce served over vanilla ice cream. The dessert was created by Brennan’s restaurant in New Orleans in 1951. You can read more about its origin here.
Sounds amazing, right?? The combination of flavors is delicious and it’s super easy to make at home. I think my cake version does the classic dessert justice.
How do you make this Bananas Foster Cake?
I used my favorite banana cake recipe as a base for this with a bit of added cinnamon. For the filling, I mostly followed the traditional Bananas Foster recipe here, except that I didn’t flambé it.
If you’ve been following Liv for Cake for a while, you know that I cannot be trusted with a kitchen torch (among other things). Attempting to flambé the sauce was just a recipe for disaster so I opted not to (aka I chickened out). I don’t mind a bit of alcohol in my desserts, so it worked just fine for me.
Flambé
If you attempt to flambé the sauce, please research the best way to do so and use extreme caution. Can’t hurt to have a fire extinguisher nearby just in case (lol).
You’ll need to cool the sauce and bananas completely before using in the cake. I actually let mine sit overnight in the fridge. This is not necessary but if you want to space out your baking you can do it. Your sauce may thicken quite a bit though and you may need to warm it up again. Mine actually thickened so much that I had to remake it the next day (I had cooked it too long, recipe adjusted for proper times).
I actually had to remake the sauce FOUR times because something kept going wrong (aka I was rushing as usual and cooking the sauce over a much higher heat than I should have). I’ll save you the dramatics, but the sauce was either too thick, or crystallized badly, or turned into a fudge.
I wanted to use the sauce as a type of caramel drip on the cake, but gave up after the 4th attempt. I used the sauce on the cake layers and drizzled it on the filling as I was stacking the cake. As such you get a bit of a plain looking cake with some pizazz on the inside.
Vanilla Bean Frosting
I wanted flecks of vanilla bean in the frosting to try to emulate the homemade vanilla ice cream that would come with Bananas Foster.
I used my favorite vanilla bean paste to do this, but you could use the seeds scraped out of a vanilla bean or just regular old vanilla if that’s all you have lying around.
This frosting tastes JUST like the very best vanilla ice cream you’ve ever had.
How did you decorate this Banana Cake?
I kept the decoration fairly simple, except that I did want to add a drip with the sauce but that didn’t quite work out as I mentioned above.
After fully frosting the cake, I used a pleated cake comb on the sides to get this effect. I only did one or two passes and called it a day. It’s not perfect, and I could have (should have?) kept going to try to patch it and make it perfectly smooth, but I was grumpy from the 4 failed attempts at the sauce and figured it wasn’t going to look like I envisioned anyhow so why bother! I used the cake comb from this set, but you can find similar ones out there.
I used a 1M piping tip to pipe the dollops on top and then placed slices of fresh cut banana on each rosette.
For the fresh banana slices, I drizzled lemon juice on them and then patted them dry before placing them on the cake. The lemon juice helps prevent the bananas from browning. It worked great!
If you love bananas foster or just banana desserts in general you will not be disappointed. It’s packed with banana flavor and a bit of a kick from the banana liqueur and rum. Plus the vanilla ice cream flavored frosting… Have I sold you on it yet? I hope you love it as much as we did!
Tips for making this Bananas Foster Cake
- The recipe as-is will also work in two 8″ pans. For three 8″ pans, 1.5x the recipe.
- To make cupcakes, all you need to do is reduce the baking time — start checking at 15mins or so.
- Do not overcook the sauce as it will thicken too much once cooled and be difficult to use.
- Please use extreme caution if you choose to flambé the sauce.
- I used the cake comb from this set, but you can find similar ones out there.
- I use vanilla bean paste in the frosting but you can use regular vanilla if you like — sub 1 for 1.
- To prevent the banana slices on top from browning, drizzle them with lemon juice then pat dry.
- Be sure to check my Swiss Meringue Buttercream post for tips and troubleshooting.
- Learn how to keep your cakes moist using Simple Syrup.
- To help ensure your cake layers bake up nice and flat, check out my Flat Top Cakes post!
Bananas Foster Cake
Ingredients
Banana Cake:
- 2 cups cake flour sifted
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3/4 cup mashed overripe bananas approx. 2 medium
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 1/2 cup buttermilk room temperature
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Bananas Foster Filling:
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup dark brown sugar lightly packed
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 large bananas slightly underripe, sliced into 1/2" pieces
- 1/4 cup banana liqueur
- 1/4 cup dark rum
Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
- 6 large egg whites
- 2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 cups unsalted butter cubed, slightly chilled
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
Instructions
Banana Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour three 6" cake pans, line with parchment.
- In a medium bowl, whisk cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside .
- In a measuring cup, combine mashed bananas and buttermilk.
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth. Add sugars and beat on med-high until pale and fluffy (2-3mins).
- Reduce speed and add eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Add vanilla and mix until well combined.
- Alternate adding flour mixture and buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with flour (3 additions of flour and 2 of buttermilk). Fully incorporating after each addition. Do not overmix.
- Spread batter evenly into prepared pans and bake for 35-40mins or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean.
- Place cakes on wire rack to cool for 10mins then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.
Bananas Foster Filling:
- Place butter, sugar, and cinnamon into a large pan. Stir to combine. Cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved.
- Stir in banana liqueur and place banana slices into the pan. Cook until slightly softened and browned.
- Add rum and stir to combine. Cook until rum is hot.
- {optional} Flambé the mixture. Use extreme caution if doing so. Cook until flames subside.
- Remove from heat. Gently remove banana slices from the pan and set aside. Cool sauce and bananas completely before using on cake.
Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
- Place egg whites and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk until combined.*
- Place bowl over a pot with 1-2" of simmering water and stir constantly with a whisk until the mixture is hot and no longer grainy to the touch or reads 160F on a candy thermometer (about 3mins).
- Place bowl on your stand mixer and whip on med-high until the meringue is stiff and cooled (the bowl is no longer warm to the touch (approx. 5-10mins)).
- Switch to paddle attachment. Slowly add cubed butter and mix until smooth.**
- Add vanilla bean paste and and whip until smooth.
Assembly:
- Place one layer of cake on a cake stand or serving plate. Drizzle with 2-3 Tbsp Foster sauce. Spread a thin layer of buttercream on top of the layer and pipe a border around the outside to hold the bananas in. Fill the middle with half of the cooled bananas. Drizzle with 1-2 Tbsp more Fosters sauce. Repeat with next layer and place final layer on top. Apply a thin coat of frosting all over the cake. Chill for 20mins.
- Frost and smooth the outside of the cake, generously frosting the sides specifically. Smooth with an icing smoother.
- Use a pleated cake comb on the sides of the cake. Repeat, scraping off more frosting each time, until smooth.
- Pipe rosette dollops using a 1M tip with remainder of frosting and place fresh banana slices on top.
Notes
** The buttercream may look like it’s curdled at some point. Keep mixing until it is completely smooth. If you choose to flambé the sauce, please use extreme caution. Bananas Foster recipe from Brennan’s
Ab says
I’ve made this cake before and loved it but Do you think a cream cheese frosting would work well with this cake? The bananas fosters filling is super sweet (in a great way) so I was hoping a cream cheese frosting rather than a buttercream might help balance it but not sure if it will be to heavy for a denser cake like this
Olivia says
Hi Ab! I think that would taste delicious. My only concern would be that I find CC frosting softer so holding everything in with the weight of the layers and filling could possibly be an issue. You could do a dam with white chocolate ganache to hold in the filling though. Let me know how it turns out!
Kelsey says
So I want to preface all of this, that I am no way near a professional baker. I like to bake from time to time, but no where near talented or good when it comes to being a professional. Instructions are key to me since I’m not the best. I thought there were clear instructions in some area’s as well as helfpul hints, but I think certain items needed more information to assist me in my bake. (I did two cakes (8inch) and cooked for 30 mintues and it turned out well)
That being said, this was an interesting cake to bake. The cake was easy to make of it self. I don’t think my banana’s were overripe enough, but overall the cake was easy to bake and looked great! Tasted great as well. Very dense and similar in taste to banana bread. This part was easy and I feel any baker can do.
The inside mixture, I think I did that correctly as well. Tasted delicious, although I was very confused when I added the rum and cooked until ‘hot’. The sauce was already bubbling when I added the rum, so I wasn’t sure how long that meant. In addition, I’m not sure what it mean to cook the bananas until brown. The sauce itself was brown so it was hard to undersand what ‘brown’ meant. I did try to wait until it was softened, but not sure if I cooked it long enough. Either way, it ended up well and wasn’t to hard besides trying to understand those baking instructions (like I said, I’m no chef so I take all written descriptions to heart!). Overall, this was great though. I think I got the flavor right and was fun to make.
So here is where my trouble area came….the Frosting. My worst enemby. So this is where all hell broke loose in my kitchen. I blended egg whites and sugar, then moved that to be blended over the heat. I tried to mix it, but never felt like I got the sugar granules out completely. In additoin, I was worried I’d cook the egg whites, so I may have take the mixture off the heat sooner than planned. I then went back to my mixer to beat the egg and sugar (15 mintues) until it turne into a mergingue like texture. Since the time suggested 5-10, I was worried overbeat it, but the mixture was getting partially stiff, but thought it could get more. Now I added the cube butter….It never fully mixed/broke down. I mixed for another 10 minutes. I know there was a note that it will take time (it will look curdled), but it would eventually become smooth….It never happened. At this point I was fearing my mixture was overmixed. It wasn’t stiff enough to hold cake, but loose and the texture was definitely chunky with butter chunks. I mean, it tasted great, but I was disappointment in myself I couldn’t make it look like it was in the pciture. Everyone though I didn’t airrate it enough to get it stiff, but I basically beat this mixture for 20 minutes and if it needed more, then that’s crazy!
Overall, I’d say it was a great cake. I love the flavor and think my biggest mistake was the frosting, but the frosting tasted good (despite it’s weird consistency, and lack of stability). Will I try to make this again, probably not since I’m afraid to screw up again, but we’ll see.
Olivia says
Hi Kelsey! So glad you liked the cake. It sounds like a few things went wrong with the frosting though! I have a detailed tutorial here with tips and troubleshooting: https://livforcake.com/swiss-meringue-buttercream-recipe/
Beth says
This sounds delicious! Do you need to refrigerate the cake because of the banana filling?
Olivia says
Hi Beth! Yes, I recommend refrigerating.
K says
Hey, Olivia! I have been looking for a great banana cake recipe and this looks INCREDIBLE! I’ve been baking for a few years but have never achieved a pretty frosted cake. I’ve read over your instructions for frosting but was wondering if you have any advice and tips on frosting cakes because yours always look so beautiful!
Olivia says
Hi K! Thank you! It honestly just takes lots and lots of practice (an patience). Making sure to knock any air bubbles out of the buttercream helps and using light pressure when smoothing the sides. Really though, the taste is more important than the look anyhow, so I wouldn’t get too hung up on that 🙂
Donna Mehta says
All of your cake recipes look fantastic! I used to work in a private dining club where I frequently prepared Bananas Foster tableside. Our recipe included the juice of a half an orange and half a lemon. These were added before flambeeing. I think that the citrus really made the sauce. I’m going to make this with the added citrus. Thanks.
Olivia says
Hi Donna! That is a great tip. I am going to try that next time! Please let me know how you like it 🙂
DeAngela says
I have a 9 x 1.5 cake pan should I double (2x) the recipe for 2 or 3 cake pans?
Olivia says
Hi DeAngela! Converting pan sizes is always tricky. Here are some sites I use as a guideline:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/PanSizes.html
https://www.cookipedia.co.uk/recipes_wiki/Cake_tin_conversion_charts
Sarah says
Hey Olivia. This cake looks amazing. However can you sub out the alcohol. I know you can cook it out but the person who has requested a banana cake for their birthday is a reformed alcoholic. So I would not like to risk it.
Many thanks
Olivia says
Hi Sarah! I would use rum extract instead of the rum, but only 1-2 teaspoons or so at most as it is concentrated. Maybe start with less and add more if needed. Either leave the banana liqueur out or add 1/2-1 tsp or so of banana extract. I hope that helps!
Kamaria says
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! It was DELICIOUS!! I made the cake and the filling but substituted the Vanilla SMB with your Brown Butter SMB found in another one if your recipes. Everything was amazing. My husband said it was one of the best cakes he’s ever had!
Olivia says
Hi Kamaria! I am so thrilled you both loved it. Thanks for the wonderful feedback!
Katrina says
I really enjoyed baking this cake unfortunately it was a miss. I don’t believe I will make it again without some weeks. I made it for my mother’s birthday. My whole family LOVED the banana fosters filling. I even had extra and placed some on the top and piped around the sides with frosting. Thank you for the note about the frosting, that it may look curdled and to keep going. I started to freak out but was patient and it got A LOT better. When baking the cake part, I did a small tester in a cupcake pan to ensure the dough was going to be fluffy. It seemed like it would be alright. It was somewhat fluffy and not too dense but when assembling the cake I really noticed the weight. When cutting the cake the next day it was a bit tough to cut through. The other aspect of the cake we didn’t quite enjoy was the frosting. It was really sweet and heavy. I absolutely love a swiss meringue buttercream and had high hopes. I was hoping to turn my mom into a buttercream fan with this cake. I think next time I would use less butter so keep the soft fluffy meringue aspect. As for sugar, I may add less and/ or add some salt. I really enjoyed making this cake. It turned out beautiful. My family may ask for it again just to taste the banana foster filling. For my dad’s birthday, they had me make just the filling for the pancake brunch.
Olivia says
Hi Katrina! Sorry to hear you didn’t love this one. My cakes tend to be more on the dense side rather than light and fluffy, and banana-based ones even moreso. It shouldn’t be unpleasantly dense though and definitely not hard to cut through! Did you serve it cold? That would make a difference too.
Overly dense cakes can be from overmixing the cake batter once the flour is added (it develops too much gluten) or not using room temperature ingredients so the cake batter doesn’t emulsify properly. Another issue could be too much flour. It’s best to spoon the flour into your measuring up and level it off. If you dip your scoop into your flour sometimes you get more than you need.
Michelle G says
How far in advance can you make this cake so the bananas in the filling don’t break down? Using this for a wedding cake tier and wanted to know if it would be ok for two days in fridge/cooler. Also the nuptials want a 5″ for their anniversary tier so will it freeze ok? The anniversary tier would NOT be in the tiered stack for photos, it is delivered already packaged for storage, just was not sure it would freeze ok (although I freeze bananas all the time for smoothies and banana cake/bread) when they are super ripe at the store and on sale.
Olivia says
Hi Michelle! The cake should be ok for a couple days in the fridge. I wouldn’t put fresh banana slices on it (if you’re doing that) until just before serving as they could brown. Freezing should be fine too as the bananas get cooked a bit to make the filling. They might soften a bit more once thawed though. I generally recommend only freezing stuff for 3 months, but I have done it for longer (with other cakes). The texture will likely be a bit different but I think it would probably be fine.
Hayley says
Made the banana cake, and it came out perfect. Really great fluffy texture. Unfortunately I tried pairing it with a cream cheese frosting (from the chai cake page) and it was too unstable to support the levels and they slid off each other. SMB better for layer cakes I think.
Olivia says
Hi Hayley! So happy you loved it 🙂 CC Frosting is harder to work with for sure, especially if there is any sort of filling.
Nancy says
Hi Liv,
First I’d like to say I’m a huge fan! Your recipes and cakes make baking accessible — you make us look like rock star bakers.
I have made many of your cakes and you typically use butter rather than oil. Wondering why that is your choice and and if using oil could lighten up these heavy banana layers?
Thanks for your help
Olivia says
Hi Nancy! Thanks so much, that totally made my day! 🙂 You could definitely use some or all oil instead of butter. It should lighten it up a bit but only so much as the bananas weigh it down some (banana bread like). It will give it more of a greasy mouth feel, but that’s just a matter of preference 🙂
Thomas says
Omg I found banana and dark rum liquor combined. It tasted amazing if you can find it, I’m in the uk so I don’t know if it is available but it made by ‘palm beach’
Olivia says
Ohhh that sounds amazing!! I will see if I can find it here 🙂
Maria says
Hello Liv,
I love all your recipes very creative and never fails and always get alot of comments.
I was just wondering if I would like to make 2 x9 inch cakes should I do 1.5 the receipe or double it?
Olivia says
Hi Maria! Converting pan sizes is always tricky. Here are some sites I use as a guideline:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/PanSizes.html
https://www.cookipedia.co.uk/recipes_wiki/Cake_tin_conversion_charts
My layers here are quite thin and would work well as two 8″ pans. I would 1.25x the recipe for two 9″ pans.
Srividhya says
How tall did this cake turn out? It seems like mine didn’t rise very much, it’s just about an inch tall. I know it’s a dense cake, but is it supposed to be so short? Could I have done something wrong?
Olivia says
Hi Srividhya! Each of my cake layers was about 1″ tall.
Thomas says
So are we able to store the banana filling in the fridge overnight or does that mess it up?
Olivia says
Hi Thomas! I think that should work fine. It might thicken a bit in the fridge so you may need to bring it to room temperature again to use in the cake.
Evelyn says
Has anyone found the cake to be gooey and as my mother says “glunky” lol. As of right now looking at the pictures it kinda looks it. Just wanted to know before i make it.
Olivia says
Hi Evelyn! The cake itself should not be gooey at all. It will be a bit more on the dense side due to the banana in the batter, but as long as it’s properly baked it should not be gluey.
Elena says
I’m making this today and can’t find banana liqueur – how critical is this ingredient? Can I add a bit more rum? Or more butter?
Olivia says
Hi Elena! You can add more rum or just leave the banana liqueur out. Will just have a bit less banana flavour but should be totally fine.
Angela says
I use 2 tsps of banana extract and I works fine.
Anthony says
Great cake. I had a little trouble with the frosting. I couldn’t get past the soupy phase until I added another half cup of butter. Generally I am able to get it to right state with 2-3 sessions in the fridge but I realized after almost 2 hours worth of cooling sessions that it was missing something. Also I did the flambé as I could not find a banana liqueur and had to use 99 bananas with some dark rum. I figured the sauce would have been wayyyy too boozy unless I burned it away.
Olivia says
Hi Anthony! Thanks for the great feedback, I’m so glad you liked it! Strange about the frosting not getting past the soupy stage after that much chilling — was your meringue stiff before you added the butter? I had to look up what 99 Bananas was…Good call on the flambé in that regard — it likely would have been too strong! It was strong enough in my filling, but fine once combined with the cake.
Anthony says
The meringue was perfect. In the past i had i always cheated with meringues by using a pinch of cream or tarter, but your method gave me perfectly stiff peaks every time. i juice 3 lemons and soak my tools before starting. My SMB’s always have the soupy phase but i havent had trouble getting them to whip up. I did notice that the main recipe you have for SMB calls for 2-3 cups of butter for the same amount of egg whites where as this one only calls for 2. Adding butter gave it that buttery texture at low temps that i just wasnt getting. I was then able to whip it up
Brittany says
Would this work in 8” pans??
Olivia says
Hi Brittany! Yes, the Tips section above the recipe gives details on how to convert it to 8″ pans.
Beverley Press says
Well what do you know? I have all these ingredients in my kitchen and no torch in sight! I’m baking this tomorrow after my spin class xoxo Have a great weekend
Olivia says
Hi Beverley! So exciting, I hope you love it as much as we do!
Linda Giampa says
If I wanted to make cupcakes, would I make a hole in the cooked cupcake and put the filling in?
Olivia says
Yes, exactly! I’d maybe recommend making the banana pieces smaller if so. I would rough chop them after cooking/cooling them.