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.
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.
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!
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!
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:)
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 one is really madness! I love it! So crispy and sweet!
This looks great, I always have bananas around the kitchen.
My blog: https://whiskbakeeatrepeat.blogspot.com
This looks super delicious!!:)
I always have riped bananas at home. That looks like a fantastic recipe to try out.
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 love all things coffee! except for coffee itself.. weird lol