A Banana Bundt Cake that will Make Your Grandma Proud

Jump to the Recipe

Some things are utterly timeless. A bouquet of roses, a good cup of tea, pancakes with syrup, and this banana bundt cake.

Top down view of a slice of banana cake on a black saucer and the remainder of the cake on white porcelain serving tray. A cake server and pecan pieces litter the table.

For me, bundt cakes conjure up warm, fuzzy memories of baking with my grandparents.

My grandpa was a baker by trade, but my grandma sure knew her way around a kitchen as well. Their house always smelled divine.

A banana cake on white porcelain cake stand with maple glaze being poured on vita a yellow porcelain serving pitcher.

When you walked through the door, you immediately started salivating.

This recipe elicits the same reaction from my husband. Entering the house after work and being intoxicated by this enticingly fragrant smell, he immediately makes a beeline for the kitchen.

An extreme close up of a slice of banana bundt cake on black porcelain plate.

Do you know anyone who doesn’t love to come home to a house that smells like delicious confections? Yeah, me neither.

Let’s get to the recipe.

The Recipe

Classic Banana Cake
Votes: 3
Rating: 4.67
You:
Rate this recipe!
Print Recipe
Let this maple glazed banana bundt cake become the special dish that you're known for. Bake one today to start your own tradition.
Servings Prep Time
12 servings 15 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
30 minutes 60 minutes
Servings Prep Time
12 servings 15 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
30 minutes 60 minutes
Classic Banana Cake
Votes: 3
Rating: 4.67
You:
Rate this recipe!
Print Recipe
Let this maple glazed banana bundt cake become the special dish that you're known for. Bake one today to start your own tradition.
Servings Prep Time
12 servings 15 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
30 minutes 60 minutes
Servings Prep Time
12 servings 15 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
30 minutes 60 minutes
Ingredients
For the Cake:
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
  • 4 tablespoons sour cream
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium)
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For the Glaze:
  • 1 cup Powdered sugar
  • 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For the Garnish:
  • 1/2 cups raw unsalted pecan or walnut pieces (optional)
Servings: servings
Units:
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream sugar and butter together. Add sour cream and eggs, and stir to combine.
  2. In a separate bowl, combine baking soda, salt, and flour. Add this alternately with the mashed bananas to the creamed butter mixture. Add vanilla and stir to combine.
  3. Pour into a greased and floured bundt pan, and bake for 40-45 minutes, until the cake's top turns golden brown.
  4. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely, about 45-60 minutes. Once cool, invert pan and allow gravity to aid in the release of the cake.
  5. To make the glaze, combine powdered sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla. Glaze cake and garnish with nuts if using. Slice and serve.

Nutritional Info*

Nutrition Facts
Classic Banana Cake
Amount Per Serving
Calories 399 Calories from Fat 117
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 13g 20%
Saturated Fat 6g 30%
Polyunsaturated Fat 1g
Monounsaturated Fat 2g
Cholesterol 54mg 18%
Sodium 159mg 7%
Potassium 93mg 3%
Total Carbohydrates 67g 22%
Dietary Fiber 2g 8%
Sugars 42g
Protein 5g 10%
Vitamin A 8%
Vitamin C 3%
Calcium 2%
Iron 8%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

 

Cooking By the Numbers…

Step 1 – Prep Ingredients, Grease the Pan, and Preheat

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Gather all of your ingredients. Go ahead and set out your unsalted butter so it can come to room temperature.

Grease and lightly flour a bundt pan. Then set aside.

Don’t hold back with this step. Conjure your inner southern belle and coat the pan with a good layer of butter or shortening followed by a light coating of flour.

Use your fingers when greasing to get into all the nooks and crannies of this pan. If you don’t, you will have a hard time getting the pan to release the cake properly later on.

A decorative bundt pan greased and coated with flour, on a white surface.

Allow the flour to show you what parts of the pan aren’t greased well. If the flour doesn’t stick, grease that section again. Be sure to shake all excess flour out when all sections are coated.

In a large bowl, whisk together the baking soda, salt, and all-purpose flour, and set the bowl aside.

Be sure to use baking soda from your cupboard, not the fridge. When stored in the refrigerator, baking soda is exposed to moisture and absorbs odors. We don’t want foul smelling baked goods, so be sure to designate a separate box for your baking needs.

Measure out the sugar and place in an adequately sized bowl off to the side. For this recipe, I recommend using regular fine white sugar crystals rather than coarser options.

Add the measured amount of sour cream to a small bowl and set aside for later use. If you prefer, you may substitute this with Greek yogurt. Either will lend that rich flavor to the end product. Use whichever you have on hand.

Go ahead and crack two eggs into a small bowl for easy access later. Cracking the eggs separately also makes it easier to remove any unwanted shell fragments.

Mash 3 very ripe bananas in a small bowl. It’s important that they be very ripe. The riper, the sweeter when it comes to this popular fruit.

A small blue bowl of mashed bananas and a large gray pitcher of flour on a white surface.

Even better, go to the markdown section of your grocery store and get the almost brown bananas.

This is also a fun step to let the kids help with. My son loves to mash up ingredients for my recipes. Set the bowl aside.

Last but not least, measure pure vanilla extract into a small pinch bowl.

If you have real vanilla beans on hand, feel free to use those instead. About 1 scraped bean per teaspoon of extract is the equivalent.

Also, a happy medium and an option I use quite frequently is vanilla bean paste. The measurements are the same, but this offers the visual appearance of fresh vanilla beans (those little flecks!) with a longer shelf life. Again, use whichever you prefer or have on hand.

Step 2 – Cream Butter and Sugar

I adore my stand mixer, but for quick jobs like this, I reach for my hand mixer.

Creamed butter and sugar in a stainless steel bowl with hand mixer beaters coated in the mixture and a blue mixer visible at the top right of the frame, on a white countertop.

With whichever tool you have, cream the room temp butter and sugar together until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Until the mixture is smooth, a bit fluffy, and lighter in color.

Step 3 – Mix in Sour Cream and Eggs

Add the eggs and dairy of choice (sour cream or Greek yogurt) and fold in by hand until the mixture is smooth, without any lumps. Be sure to completely work in the eggs and dairy, as you want them fully incorporated.

Creamed butter and sugar in a stainless steel mixing bowl with a red rubber and stainless steel spatula, beside a small white bowl of sour cream and another small white bowl of brown eggs, on a white background.

If you notice small lumps, you may have not creamed the sugar and butter well, or attempted to cream them while they were still too cold. Work the lumps out now by hand.

Step 4 – Add Dry Ingredients, Banana, and Vanilla

To the smooth mixture, alternate adding from your bowl of dry ingredients and the mashed bananas.

Be sure to incorporate each addition completely before adding the next. That being said, don’t overmix the batter, or your cake can become too dense. As soon as one ingredient is thoroughly mixed, add the other.

A stainless steel mixing bowl with cake batter on a white wooden background.

Once you’ve added all of the dry ingredient mixture and bananas, add the vanilla and mix well.

Step 5 – Bake

Add the batter to the prepped bundt pan and bake at 350°F for 40-45 minutes. The top will be golden brown, and a toothpick will come out clean when inserted to test.

A bundt pan filled banana cake batter on a white wooden background.

You can also use a cake tester instead of a toothpick. Either should come out clean when inserted.

Step 6 – Cool

Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Be sure to turn your oven off.

Let the cake rest in the same position it baked in. This will take up to an hour to cool. Do not rush this step!

A brown bundt cake on a white cake stand, on a brown table with a white background.

If you do, you may end up with a cake that resembles a patchwork quilt. When warm, bits of the cake can stick to the pan, leaving it with holes or patches and without a crusted top.

Once cool, with a cooling rack pressed to the top of the pan, invert and set on the counter. Do not shake to get the cake to release. Instead, allow gravity to aid in its descent.

Give the cake another 15-20 minutes to finish cooling, if needed.

Step 7 – Glaze, Garnish, and Serve

While the cake is cooling, mix your confectioner’s sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla extract together with a fork. This should be thick but smooth.

Try to make this right before you plan to glaze your cake, as it will thicken the longer it sits.

If your glaze gets too thick, add 1 teaspoon of milk and stir. This should thin it back out.

Square image of a brown banana bundt cake with white maple glaze being drizzled onto the top of the cake from above, on a white cake stand atop a brown wooden table.

Once your cake has cooled completely, pour the glaze around the top of the cake to allow it to drip down either side.

Garnish with whatever nuts (if any) you prefer. A natural choice would be either pecans or walnuts.

Now, it’s time to slice and serve. Enjoy!

Show your Support – With Cake!

Is there someone in your life that you want to impress?

Maybe you have a new boss or neighbor? Acts of goodwill, especially when they are food related, always set you on the right path.

We all want to be helpful and supportive to those around us. Food is a universal love language. It ties us all together, regardless of our many differences.

Food is a gesture that everyone appreciates in times of joy or sadness.

Next time you want to show affection or appreciation (say because your dad came out and fixed your HVAC system in the cold so you’d have heat…) whip up this fantastic banana bundt cake to say thank you!

A banana bundt cake on a white cake stand with maple glaze and sprinkled with pecans, sliced so the crumb is visible, with a slice of cake on a gray plate to the right, and a folded white and green cloth to the left, on a brown wooden table with a beige background.

For another delish banana recipe, take a peek at our banana cream pudding, a simply classic dessert!

For more tasty bundt desserts, try these perfectly circular treats:

There are so many unique variations of this type of recipe. Tell me, what tweaks would you make? Leave us a comment – we can’t wait to hear about all of your customized versions.


Don’t forget to Pin It!

A collage of photos showing different views of a banana bundt cake with maple glaze.

Photos by Leslie Morrison, © Ask the Experts, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. See our TOS for more details. Originally published by Shanna Mallon on February 23rd, 2009. Last updated: December 28, 2019 at 6:37 am.

*Nutritional information derived from a database of known generic and branded foods and ingredients and was not compiled by a registered dietitian or submitted for lab testing. It should be viewed as an approximation.

About Leslie Morrison

Leslie is a food photographer and writer. She enjoys spending time in her kitchen and behind the lens of her camera and working on her food blog, Deliciously Plated (deliciouslyplated.com). When she isn’t working, she is spending time with her son and her husband.

12 thoughts on “A Banana Bundt Cake that will Make Your Grandma Proud”

  1. shannalee — this is such a sweet poignant post. with the exception of my college computer science professor’s wake, i’ve not been touched by death. but my grandparents are getting up there in years and i know it’s an inevitable occurance. i bought a hand of bananas a few days ago and i know now where a few of them will go. 🙂 thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  2. Great post, Shannalee. And I’m a sucker for banana bread, and the crust on this one looks divine. I’m foregoing my smoothies this week so my bananas will turn brown.

    Reply
  3. You, my friend, need to publish a book. I would buy it in a second and recommend it to everyone. You have such a way with words. It makes me jealous. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Great post. Great recipe too. It made me think of myself at 12 and how I had been touched by death and my son, who will be 12 soon and how he had to deal with the loss of his grandfather, which was his first experience with death. Although he lived in India, he had visited us a few times for six month visits. I’ll never look at a milk shake the same, either.

    Reply
  5. I want to thank all of you for your sweet, lovely comments. It makes me want to wrap all of you in a big hug. Really.

    Lan – That’s amazing and what a blessing to still have your grandparents!

    You are kind, DD!

    MFK/Kendra: I literally just read your strawberry-banana smoothie post the other day, and I promptly went to the kitchen and made one, minus a few of the healthy ingredients. (LOL!) It was SO good.

    You’re welcome, Gemma, and thank you!

    Jo, Coming from you especially, I take that as a great compliment. You are one of the best readers I know.

    TJ, If I’m being honest, your comment made me tear up a little. I don’t know what else to say but thank you.

    Chessa/Monica, I know! I’m sorry you didn’t win, too! Maybe next time, indeed!

    Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.