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 flavours 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 favourite 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.
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 favourite 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 flavour and a bit of a kick from the banana liqueur and rum. Plus the vanilla ice cream flavoured frosting… Have I sold you on it yet? I hope you love it as much as we did!
Looking for more Banana desserts?
- Banana Split Cake
- Triple Chocolate Banana Bread
- Nutella Banana Cake
- Blueberry Banana Cake
- Banana Chocolate Chip Cake
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
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.
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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
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 🙂
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.