Homemade Banana Coconut Cake | The Best Cake Recipes

Ultra Moist Banana Coconut Cake with homemade coconut cream frosting. You’ll love the lightly toasted coconut on top!

What do you recipe do you pull out when you have overripe bananas on the counter? Yes, you can always make a banana bread, but how about a banana cake?

There’s chiffon cake, a bundt cake, 4 ingredient banana cake…and this Banana Coconut Cake that you’re going to LOVE.

What you’ll love about this recipe:

A great way to use up extra bananas
100% homemade cake
Moist texture
Toasted coconut on top
Coconut cream frosting
An excellent make ahead dessert

A few things about the ingredients:

We usually use salted butter in recipes since that’s what we keep. We’ve never had a recipe be too salty. But if you’re watching salt intake, feel free to use unsalted butter instead.
Large eggs are standard. If you have a different size, use this conversion chart.
Ripe bananas. You want the bananas to be overripe. The browner they are, the sweeter they will be. Don’t have ripe bananas? Try this trick to ripen them quickly!
Cake flour helps cakes to have a soft, tender crumb. You can use all-purpose flour if you’d like, but cake flour will give you better results.
Buttermilk adds flavor and helps the cake stay tender and soft. If you don’t have buttermilk, put one tablespoon of white vinegar in a measuring cup. Then fill the rest of the cup with milk. This will curdle slightly as it sits and create an easy homemade buttermilk.

mixing eggs into creamed butter and sugar

Make the cake:

Prepare. Grease and flour 2 9” round cake pans. Preheat the oven to 375º Farenheit.
Cream and Mix. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs and mix well, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the ripe bananas and vanilla extract and mix again for 2 minutes.
Whisk. In a small bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Combine. Add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the creamed banana mixture alternately, mixing between each addition. Fold in the chopped pecans.
Bake. Spoon the cake batter into the two prepared pans evenly. Sprinkle the tops with the shredded coconut. Bake 15 minutes. Then cover the cake pans loosely with foil and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until the cake tests done.

Frosting for Banana Coconut Cake

In a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer), cream the butter until it is almost white in appearance. Add the powdered sugar, extracts and heavy cream. Beat well until light and fluffy.

Looking for a different type of frosting? Try cream cheese frosting, mascarpone frosting or even cinnamon buttercream.

Banana Coconut Cake

4.36 from 34 votes

Ultra Moist Banana Coconut Cake with homemade coconut cream frosting. You'll love the lightly toasted coconut on top!

Servings 15

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 25

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Ingredients

For the cake:

¾ cup salted butter at room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup chopped pecans
1 cup shredded coconut

For the frosting:

1 cup salted butter at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon coconut extract
¼ cup cold heavy cream

Instructions

Grease and flour 2 9” round cake pans.
Preheat the oven to 375º Farenheit.
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the eggs and mix well, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add the ripe bananas and vanilla extract and mix again for 2 minutes.
In a small bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the creamed banana mixture alternately, mixing between each addition.
Fold in the chopped pecans.
Spoon the cake batter into the two prepared pans evenly.
Sprinkle the tops with the shredded coconut.
Bake 15 minutes. Then cover the cake pans loosely with foil and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until the cake tests done.
Cool the cakes in the pans, then turn them out to a wire rack to cool completely.
In a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer), cream the butter until it is almost white in appearance. Add the powdered sugar, extracts and heavy cream. Beat well until light and fluffy.
Place one cake on a cake plate with the coconut side down.
Spread some frosting on top of this cake.
Place the second cake layer coconut side up on the first cake.
Frost the sides of the cake with the frosting. Frost the outer top edge of the cake (about 1-2” around the outer edge depending on how much frosting you have left). Leave the center of the cake unfrosted to show the coconut top.
Store in an airtight container.

Notes

Recipe Source: Clipping from Taste of Home magazine found in my grandma’s cookbook

The calories shown are based on the cake being cut into 15 pieces, with 1 serving being 1 slice of cake. Since different brands of ingredients have different nutritional information, the calories shown are just an estimate. **We are not dietitians and recommend you seek a nutritionist for exact nutritional information.**