Banana Streusel Coffee Cake
A coffee cake made with bananas and pecans, all topped with a brown sugar streusel.
What do you do with overripe bananas? I really want to know. I have a stash in my freezer that I’m saving, but that I’ll probably never get to because the brown bananas keep coming. Sure, I could buy less bananas at the grocery store every week, but that would be too smart. So we buy a whole bunch, we eat most, and then I throw a few away.
We are so wasteful.
And what about bananas that look great in the store, but once they’re home they go straight from green to brown? Very annoying. That is what happened to this bunch.
I really didn’t want to throw away all those bananas, and so I scoured my mind and cookbooks for something easy that called for bananas that wasn’t banana bread. I never did find exactly what I was looking for, I must have been in a picky mood. I did, however, find a bookmarked recipe for sour cream coffee cake.
I did a simple swap of banana puree for the sour cream and the end result was one tasty cake. Of course you could put a streusel topping on just about anything and I’d probably love it.
The banana kept it moist and flavorful and the topping provides a nice contrasting crunch. It’s not too sweet and is perfect for breakfast. Or, serve it with a dollop of whipped cream and call it dessert. This is definitely a recipe to keep handy for the next time you find yourself with a surplus of bananas, or even a reason to go out and get some more!
Banana Streusel Coffee Cake
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter , cold and cut into cubes
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup pecans , toasted and chopped
- 1 cup pureed bananas , about 3 medium bananas
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons orange zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9-inch springform pan.
- Stir together the flour, ¾ cup brown sugar, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Blend in ¾ cup (1 ½ stick) cold butter with your fingers or pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal and the butter is the size of peas.
- Transfer ¾ cup of the mixture to a medium bowl and blend in cinnamon, remaining ¼ cup butter, and remaining ¼ cup brown sugar until crumbly. Stir in pecans. Refrigerate steusel until ready to use.
- Whisk together the banana puree, egg, yolk, vanilla, baking soda and orange zest in a bowl. Stir into the remaining flour mixture and mix until just combined (batter will be stiff).
- Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and sprinkle with the streusel topping. Bake until cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour to 1 ¼ hour. Cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then remove springform sides and cool completely.
28 Comments on “Banana Streusel Coffee Cake”
Hummm looks yummy !
But I will have to wait. This is not banana season in Sydney. Bananas cost between $1.50 and $2 each at the moment !
If my bananas are overripe as in your picture, I peel, mash, add some squirts of lemon, maybe maple syrup and eat plain or on top of yogurt, cereal, etc. If they are totally brown, I freeze them and make banana bread. I never throw out a banana.
My family has a really good banana oatmeal cookie recipe with a frosting/glaze over top. Mmmm
Could you please share your banana oatmeal cookie recipe? Thanks
Your swapping sour cream for bananas is genius! Really awesome idea 🙂
ooo this looks delish. I just froze a couple of bananas last week and have been meaning to make a chocolate banana cake, but this may be my next choice.
Ah! It IS delicious! I have some bananas in the freezer (that's what I do with my overripe bananas) that I just might pull out to make this!
I dont bother to have a slice of this wonderful cake, simply gorgeous..
Looks so divine…I guess a drizzle of maple syprup wont hurt!!!
Hi Annalise, your cake looks so delicious!
I personally hate ripe bananas. Just to think how many of those I have thrown away just because they turn brown in no time. But when I look at all these pictures I think why make so much waste when I can bake something nice. Thanks for your recipe.
This looks like my kind of cake! Absolutely wonderful!
I would love to try it someday! 🙂
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Cheers
wow, that is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for recently: a way to use up overripe bananas that wasn't banana bread! And I love streusel! Will definitely try this asap. Brava!
This looks delicious! By the way, your recipe calls for 1 cup of butter, but the directions seem to call for 1 1/2 cups instead… beautiful cake, either way. 🙂
that cake looks amazing! i also freeze brown bananas, but rarely make banana bread. instead, i make banana bars (from an old betty crocker recipe) that i grew up eating. http://kitchentrialanderror.blogspot.com/2010/06/banana-bars.html
First time to your site and I love it! Wonderful photos and delicious recipes!
i love all things coffee! except for coffee itself.. weird lol
This is perfect – I have a whole stash of overripe bananas in my freezer!! I love that this is a round cake, too! Beautiful. As for the overripe bananas, I usually just keep them around to make smoothies with. They add the perfect consistency when they are frozen! 🙂
I always have riped bananas at home. That looks like a fantastic recipe to try out.
This looks super delicious!!:)
This looks great, I always have bananas around the kitchen.
My blog: http://whiskbakeeatrepeat.blogspot.com
This one is really madness! I love it! So crispy and sweet!
Great looking cake, wish I knew the metric details for the recipe (Im in Ireland). And I never knew you could put ripe bananas in the freezer, to think of all the bananas I have thrown away!
This looks like a great recipe! I’m looking forward to trying it.
As for what I do with my ripe bananas
– banana nut bread – if I have a lot
– banana oatmeal cookies if I have a few
– mash and add to pancake mix or to french toast coating if I just have one or two.
My kids and husband love banana nut french toast:)
I made one of these before. Different from your recipe but I loved it the first time so I’m trying it your way. This is an old German dish and I have German in me so thought I would try a dish that goes back to my heritage. Thanks for giving this recipe. As I’m typing this now my cake is in the oven!
Thank you, hope you enjoyed it!
I wish we had ripe bananas! My kids would eat 5 bananas a day if I’d let them. One thing they really like is banana “ice cream,” where you slice bananas and freeze them for an hour or so, then put them in a food processor (plain, with pb, cocoa, etc.). Pretty delicious!
This was delicious. I had no pecans or nuts so used caramel chips. It was ok, but a little sweet for me. A plain streusel would be fine, too.