Banana Coffee Cake

Banana bread is a classic bake, and it definitely got more popular during lockdown! My dad makes an awesome banana bread that I’ll always love, but I was looking for a moister banana bread. I combined this banana bread recipe with a recipe for coffee cake (because who doesn’t love streusel?) and the combination was stellar! While most banana breads are typically baked in a 9x5 loaf pan, I prefer to bake mine in a 9x13 pan like a coffee cake to make it easier to share with people. The great thing about this recipe is that it’s also pretty customizable! And since it’s a coffee cake, you can totally get away with eating it for breakfast.

Ingredients

• Bananas: The star of the show! Make sure your bananas are very ripe and soft. The blacker, the better! This recipe is great for using up overripe bananas.
• Flour: All-purpose flour provides the body of the cake and the streusel topping.
• Creme fraiche: Creme fraiche is a cultured dairy product that adds acidity to the batter to help with the rise. If you can’t find it, a good substitute is sour cream or full-fat Greek yogurt.
• Neutral Oil: You can use any neutral oil like canola oil or vegetable oil. I don’t recommend using strongly flavored oils like olive oil, which will not go with the banana flavor.
• Eggs: 2 eggs provide structure for the cake. You can try using a flax egg or egg substitute like applesauce if you want to make it egg-free.
• Brown sugar: Brown sugar adds sweetness and a more complex flavor than white sugar.
• Baking Soda: Don’t confuse with baking powder!
• Spices: The batter is flavored with cinnamon, but you can add some nutmeg if you want an additional depth of flavor!
• Vanilla Extract & Salt: These add an extra dimension of flavor to the bake.

Tips

• If your bananas are too underripe, I would say wait a few days for them to ripen before making this recipe…but if you can’t wait, you can bake them in the oven until the skins turn black and scoop out the flesh to use.
• A great tip for mashing bananas is actually to use an electric beater! Just put them in a bowl and mix them around with the tines of the beater until they are mostly homogenous. This way, you avoid getting chunks of un-mashed banana in your banana bread.
• Banana bread is built for customizations! You can fold in anything from chocolate chips to shredded coconut to chopped walnuts into the batter, or mix it into the streusel on top!

Banana Coffee Cake

A tasty treat any time of the day!

Prep Time: 20 min	Cook Time: 45 min
Total Time: 1 hr 5 min	Serves: 16

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 3-4 very ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup neutral oil
• 1 cup + 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tbsp creme fraiche
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon

For the streusel:

• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, make the crumble. Combine butter, flour, sugar, and cinnamon and stir until large clumps form. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat bananas until mashed into a mostly homogenous mixture. Add in sugar and eggs and whip until bubbly and light.
4. Add in oil, creme fraiche, and vanilla extract and beat to combine.
5. Fold in flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Pour into a greased 9x13 baking pan and top with crumble.
6. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry.
7. Slice, serve and enjoy!

Notes

This recipe is vegetarian.