Don’t you love sheet cakes? They’re so easy to make and are perfect for large gatherings. Take this banana sheet cake. Like our banana bread it has wonderful banana flavor, but with a little more sweetness, and a tangy cream cheese frosting. One batch easily makes 30 servings, convenient for pot lucks and tailgates. This recipe comes from my friend Kelsey Fischer and her mom Janeen and is a family favorite of theirs. I’ve made a few slight adjustments, added some lemon juice to the frosting to give it more tang, and added a some vanilla to the cake batter. My dad gives it a strong two thumbs up and declares it “a keeper”. Enjoy!
Banana Sheet Cake Recipe
Here's a tip, leave the cream cheese and butter for the frosting out while you make the cake, that way they will be softened by the time the cake is cooled and ready to frost. This cake is on the sweet side (it is a cake after all). If you are trying to cut sugars, you may want to experiment dropping the sugar in the cake mixture by a half cup and cutting the amount of frosting in half.
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- The scraped insides of one vanilla bean, or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1 cup of mashed ripe bananas (2 large or 3 medium bananas)
- 1/2 cup full fat sour cream
Frosting
- 6 ounces cream cheese, room temp
- 4 Tbsp (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temp
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Method
1 Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) . In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
2 Beat together in a mixer the butter and sugars. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and mashed bananas.
3 Mix in half of the flour mixture, then the sour cream, then the other half of the flour mixture.
4 Spread batter evenly in a greased 10x15 baking pan. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes, or until nicely browned and the surface bounces back when you press it with your finger. Cool completely before frosting.
5 To make the frosting, mix all of the ingredients together with an electric mixer. If too stiff to spread, add a teaspoon or two of water. Spread the frosting evenly over the cake and slice to serve.
Yield: Makes 30 pieces.
Love the simplicity of this cake! Yum!
I love old school style sheet cakes. I don’t think I could eat just one piece though, especially Banana!
I would love to try this recipe – can you substitute the sour cream with anything else?
You can use plain yogurt. ~Elise
YUM! Bananas AND cream cheese! Definitely sounds like a winner to me :D Can’t wait to try this out. Do you think the white sugar could be replaced using honey? Or would that affect the texture too much? (1/2 c. honey for example)
I haven’t had a lot of luck substituting sugar with honey in baking recipes. But I do think you can easily reduce the sugar in this recipe. If you do end up adding in some honey, please tell us how it works out for you. ~Elise
Instead of sour cream try replacing it with an equal amount of strawberry yogurt. The flavor is still banana, but this makes the best banana bread and cake you have ever eaten.
This looks sensational, but too much cake for me. Can I freeze part of it, or cut the recipe in half?
You can easily cut the recipe in half, and you can freeze the cake before you frost it. ~Elise
I love sheet cakes! I have made your banana bread recipe and put it in a square pan and it worked very well. Last week I experimented with a vanilla sheet cake recipe and made two sorts of frosting to go on top, one on each side. In the vanilla sheet cake I put a mixture of almond essence and vanilla essence. Added sour cream. For the frosting I made a peanut butter one and a vanilla one. Didn’t use any cream cheese. They were both good. I think this banana cake would be nice with a sour cream chocolate frosting on it which I have also used on a chocolate sheet cake recipe containing sour cream. You can also sub yogurt or buttermilk.
With the Jewish Holidays coming up…thanks for reminding me of the good old standby the sheetcake!! A great way to feed a crowd. I’m doing a Rosh Hashanna menu…and you’ve given me a great idea! Thanks!
Would you recommend keeping this in the fridge because of the cream cheese frosting, or could it be kept out on the counter for a few days without worry? thanks!
I left mine out on the counter, covered with plastic wrap, for a couple of days, no problem. ~Elise
What’s the purpose of the sour cream in the cake mixture?
Makes it more moist and dense. ~Elise
I don’t like sheet cakes. Can you use a 9 or a 8 inch springform?
Haven’t tried it that way, but if you do, please let us know how it turns out for you. ~Elise
This was delicious and most of all easy, my two favorite cooking combinations!!
I can’t wait to try this, this looks so delicious! Thanks for sharing.
made this last night, loved it! simple and quick.
thanks for another great recipe:)
Elise……..Your recipe calls for a 10×15 sheet pan, but your photo appears to be a 9×13 pyrex baking dish. What is the difference time wise if I use the 9×13 pyrex or 9×13 metal baking pan?
Hi Mark, believe it or not, it’s a 10×15 pyrex that I’m using. It’s huge. The original recipe from Janeen calls for a 10×15 sheet pan which I don’t have, and her instructions called for 20-25 minutes. My cake was done at 20 minutes. If you are using a 9×13 pan, perhaps you’ll need an extra minute or two, but remember the cake cools in the hot pan once you take it out of the stove, so there will be quite a bit of residual heat. ~Elise
10 X 15 is an odd sized pan (and I don’t have one). Can you use 9 X 13? Also if you cut the recipe in half, would you then use a standard square pan? Thanks!
Yes, you can use a 9×13. You might want to add a minute or two to the cooking time. As for a square pan, yes again, though I’m not sure how much cooking time you would need to add. ~Elise
Banana cakes are so great. I usually make banana cream pies, but this looks very nice and simpler.
Sounds like a great recipe! If I wanted to add cocoa (I love chocolate and bananas together!), how much would you guess I should add? Thanks!
Hi Linda, your guess is as good as mine. ~Elise
LOVE sheet cakes! Sharing it with a crowd is the key ;)
This recipe was easy and oh so delicious! I didn’t have sour cream so I used a container of pineapple Yoplait yogurt. I added about 1/2 cup of dried coconut to the batter and and another handful or so to the frosting…it came out fantastically.
Thanks, Elise for another fantastic recipe!
Sounds great, love the substitutions, changes you made! ~Elise
I used a 9×13 and it was just fine. I didn’t sift my powdered sugar, though, and thus my frosting is lumpy :( but delicious!
Can this be made into cupcakes? If so, would you adjust the baking time?
I halved this and made cupcakes. I filled the tins 3/4 full and got 9; baked for 21 minutes and they are delicious! Thanks for another winner!
Thank you for this recipe! It looks amazing!! Do you think low fat cream cheese would work for the frosting?
Don’t know how well low-fat cream cheese works in frosting. When they make cream cheese low fat, they tend to put in fillers that may have an impact on the frosting. If you try it, please let us know in the comments how it turns out for you. ~Elise
Just made this last night for a group of friends, and it was a crowd-pleaser! I will definitely be making this cake again!
I used 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup applesauce to reduce the sugar and it turned out beautifully. Thanks for a delicious recipe!
Made this cake, and my daughter took it to a tennis team party – the girls declared the banana cake their favorite! I followed the recipe exactly, and especially love the body of the cake – I have a feeling only full-fat sour cream will create that…
I made the banana cake this very afternoon. It hasn’t even cooled enough to frost yet. One comment: The cake took a full 30 minutes to bake to perfection. My oven is calibrated within ±2 degrees and I used an Anchor Ovenware glass baking dish measuring 10.25″ x 14.75″
Tried this last night and it is moist and delicious. I use a 10X15X1 metal jellyroll pan. It took 27-30 minutes to bake in my oven. This cake is amazing and would also be good with toasted and finely chopped walnuts sprinkled on top.
Delicious, and everyone loved it!
I made the banana cake and brought it to a meeting. Everybody loved it and it was all gone pretty quickly! On a whim, as I added the lemon juice to the frosting, I also grated some of the lemon peel into it. Yum! I made it in a 9×13 pan and added about 5 minutes to the cook time.
Just died and went to heaven? Love the sheet cake and the frosting was just divine!
This was amazing and so easy! thanks for the great recipe :)