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Gluten-Free Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

It's the perfect hybrid of banana bread and cake—it's banana cake. It's as moist as banana bread, as indulgent as a dessert should be, and super easy to master.
Print Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Servings: 10
Course: Dessert
Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients
  

The Cake Components
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ⅓ cup oil (I used melted coconut oil)
  • ⅓ cup sour cream (or greek yogurt)
  • ¼ cup butter softened
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 cup mashed banana (about 2-3 bananas, depending on size)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 cups gluten-free all purpose flour
  • 1 ½ tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon (or as much as you feel is right)
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ¾ cup buttermilk
Cream Cheese Frosting
  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1 cup powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar)
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • ¼ tsp salt

Equipment

  • Oven
  • 2 9 inch round cake pans
  • Mixing bowl or electric mixer

Method
 

For the Cake
  1. Preheat your oven to 350℉. Adjust as needed if your oven is like mine and doesn't cook to the proper temperature. (An oven thermometer can tell you how well your oven does its ONE JOB.)
  2. Grease your two cake pans and set aside
  3. In your mixing bowl, blend together the sugar, brown sugar, sour cream, oil, and butter until smooth and creamy
  4. Add the eggs, one at a time and blend in
  5. Incorporate the mashed banana and vanilla extract; mix to combine
  6. Now it's time to add the flour and buttermilk, BUT mix them in like this:
    1 cup of flour, followed by ¼ cup of buttermilk - then mix. Then, cup #2 of flour and ¼ cup of buttermilk, and mix. Finally, the third cup of flour and the rest of the buttermilk, and mix well.
  7. Pour the batter into the two cake pans; try to get them even with one another. (A kitchen scale can help with this if you don't trust your eyeballing technique.)
  8. Let the batter rest for 15 minutes before you put it into the oven
  9. Bake for 40-45 minutes, depending on your oven. The top should be golden brown, and an inserted toothpick should come out clean.
  10. Cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, then turn the cakes out of the pans onto wire cooling racks.
  11. While they are cooling, prepare your frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
  1. Mix the softened cream cheese and powdered sugar on low speed until combined.
  2. Beat it on high until it looks nice and fluffy
  3. Add the heavy cream, vanilla extract, and salt, and beat at low speed
  4. Mix on high until fluffy and glorious. Feel free to adjust the texture with more cream or more sugar as needed. The final frosting ¼texture should hold a peak on a spoon, and not be too runny.
  5. Once the cake has cooled COMPLETELY, you can begin icing your cake
  6. Decorate the final product with banana slices or cinnamon
  7. Enjoy your masterpiece!