Here I am once again sitting with a bunch of super over ripe bananas to make Brown Butter Banana Cake. I swear Jason thinks I intentionally leave them to become overripe as an excuse to make more banana cake.
Now while I’m sure every kitchen has its own banana cake recipe, I know that using this as a staple for extra bananas can become a bit unexciting for the family. Here’s a simple fix, which is a play on an easy banana cake recipe, but with a twist which involves a tasty cream cheese frosting!!
Brown Butter Banana Cake, combines all of the goodness of the bananas and the intense flavour of the brown butter.
The other flavour that takes this cake to whole new level is the cookie butter or Speculoos cream cheese frosting, which gives it all the comfort of spices; and just to be a little naughty, I like to add a crunchy brown butter crumble for the topping.
I swear the brown butter crumble is something I can eat by the spoonful, along with the speculoos / cookie butter.
The brown butter for this cake is from Hunter Brown’s, a local Vancouver company that does brown butter cubes. It is so convenient to use these. For those of you with the extra time or who like to make theirs from scratch, here is an easy to follow recipe on how to make brown butter.
What is Brown Butter?
Brown butter or beurre noisette is nothing but browned butter. Making brown butter is easy, it is done by heating the butter slowly, until the milk solids are nicely browned and the water is evaporated from the butter. The brown butter is nutty, intense and delicious.
When using brown butter remember that the water is evaporated, so add a tsp or two of water / heavy cream in the batter to avoid dry cake.
You can substitute brown butter for butter in almost all recipes- try it with cookies next time. Add brown butter to everything from pastas to your cakes and frosting.
If you like brown butter, here’s a few brown butter recipes:
Banana Brown Butter Cake:
- Brown Butter banana Cake: A light banana cake with deep nutty flavor from the brown butter in the cake batter. You can use either store bought or make it yourself, it really is super simple! You can find my brown butter recipe here. Use up all your old bananas with this recipe 😀 Cake pan used is Fat Daddios 7″x2″
- Speculoos frosting: A luscious speculoos cream cheese frosting, the cookie butter speculoos is spiced and rich in flavour!
- Brown Butter Crumble: A crunchy, nutty and toasty crumble, to top the cake. This crumble can be used on any cake or ice creams or even top up your breakfast bowl with a little bit of crumble.
Banana Brown Butter Cake
Banana cake with brown butter and cookie butter cream cheese frosting topped with a crumble
Ingredients
Banana cake (7")
- 200 gm Mashed Banana 3 medium sized bananas
- 150 gm Brown butter (melted) Hunter Browns brown butter cubes - 15
- 60 gm Canola oil ¼ cup
- 3 L Eggs
- 200 gm Cane Sugar / Brown Sugar 1 cup
- 240 gm All purpose Flour 2 cups
- 1½ tsp Baking powder
- 1½ tsp Vanilla extact
- 30 gm Chopped Pecans
Speculoos Cream Cheese Frosting
- 125 gm Cream Cheese 4.25 oz
- 125 gm Speculoos/ Cookie Butter 4.25 oz
- 30 gm Salted Butter 1 oz
- 250 gm Icing sugar 2 cups
- 1-2 tsp Heavy Cream
Brown Butter Crumble
- 30 gm Brown butter / regular salted butter (cold) Hunter Browns brown butter cubes - 3
- 30 gm All purpose Flour ¼ cup
- 30 gm Whole wheat flour ¼ cup
- 30 gm Brown sugar 2 tbsp
- 15 gm Chopped Pecans
Instructions
Brown Butter Crumble
Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180° c. In a small bowl, add all the ingredients and rub the butter with the tip of your fingers to crumble.
Spread the mixture on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 mins or until it is golden brown. Remove from oven and let it cool.
Once the crumble is cooled, store it in an airtight container until needed. This stays fresh for 2 weeks when stored properly. Also use this to top any desserts!
Banana cake (7")
Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°c. Grease and line the baking tin with parchment.
In a bowl fitted to a paddle attachment on a stand mixer. Add the brown butter, oil and sugar, beat on medium speed.
Add and beat one egg at a time. Add the vanilla and mashed bananas into the mixture .
Sift the dry ingredients (all purpose flour + baking powder) into the wet mixture and mix until completely incorporated (medium speed 2 minutes).
Fold in the chopped nuts. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for about 35-40 minutes or until golden brown and springy to touch.
Once baked, remove from oven and let it cool on a cooling rack.
Speculoos Cream Cheese Frosting
In a bowl fitted to a paddle attachment on a stand mixer. Add the cream cheese and speculoos and beat on low speed for a minute.
Sift half of the icing sugar into the cream cheese mix. Add and beat the butter on low speed for another minute.
Sift the rest of the icing sugar and whisk on low-medium until the needed consistency. If the frosting seems a little thick add a tsp or 2 of the heavy cream.
If the consistency is a little too runny, add a tsp or two of the icing sugar.
Assembly
I used a a petal nozzle for the piping (Its a wilton 104), I am sure you can just use a piping bag and the cut the tip at a slant.
Pipe the speculoos frosting on the cake, sprinkle the crumble over and enjoy!
A few more fall recipes:
Happy Baking and happy fall
What size baking pan?
Hi there its a 7″ x 2″ inch pan, I have it linked in the post too! 🙂 You can make it in 8″ pan but it would slightly flatter than this.
Oh wow, was für ein Traum, muss ich ganz schnell nachbacken, Danke und viele Grüße,
Jese-Gabriel
Jesse-Gabriel, so ist es richtig, sorry!
Thank you Jesse, Would love to hear back when you have tried it. 🙂