Banana Coffee Cake

Irresistibly moist and flavorful banana coffee cake with the crunchiest graham cracker streusel. It takes your favorite things about a slice of banana bread and combines it with a light coffee cake with cinnamon swirl and buttery crumb topping. You won’t be able to stop at just one slice of this coffee cake recipe! 

Why you'll love it

Just like my favorite coffee cake muffins and blueberry sour cream coffee cake, this banana coffee cake recipe is packed with flavor in every bite. It is a cross between your favorite banana bread and a sumptuous coffee cake. The graham cracker streusel takes it over the top by adding so much more depth and dimension to the flavors. 

It is perfect for banana bread lovers because it is absolutely packed with banana flavor, which also helps keep it delightfully moist and flavorful. It is a great way to use up any overripe bananas. 

The mix of everything together gives you a depth of flavor and texture that is on a whole other level compared to your traditional coffee cake. 

It bakes up fairly quickly, so you have something to snack on and enjoy without too much fuss or waiting. You'll love it as the perfect breakfast with a hot cup of coffee.

Key ingredients

There really aren't a whole ton that goes into this moist banana crumb cake, but each ingredient plays a big part in adding the right flavor and texture. A few ingredients, in particular, are very important to review. You should be able to find everything at your local grocery store

• Graham cracker - Instead of flour, graham cracker crumbs are used in the streusel. It is the perfect touch to add a ton of flavor and texture that complements the bananas so well. You can use regular, honey, or cinnamon graham crackers. They all work equally well here. 
• Sugar - It is important to use brown sugar in this recipe. I prefer light brown sugar, but dark brown sugar can also work well in this recipe, too. If you don't have any available, it is very easy to make homemade brown sugar. 
• Banana - Using over ripe bananas makes a huge difference here in terms of flavor and even texture. If you don't have any, you can take underripe or just ripe bananas and roast them. That will break down the sugars and make them perfect for baking. 
• Yogurt - The yogurt shouldn't add any sweetness, so plain yogurt would work best. If you don't have yogurt, sour cream also works. 

How to make

The best part about this recipe is how quickly it is to put together. 

1. Preheat your oven and line your 8x8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper. 
2. Add all the ingredients for the streusel together into a medium bowl and mix until it comes together to form large crumbs. Set aside. Mix together the ingredients for the swirl in a small bowl and set aside. 
3. Mix together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl and set aside.
4. Add the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl or stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy. 
5. Add in the egg and banana and beat well for a few more minutes. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl before adding the yogurt and beating again. 
6. Add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. 
7. Pour about half the banana coffee cake batter into the prepared pan and then top with the cinnamon swirl mixture. 
8. Spread the remaining batter over the cinnamon sugar layer and spread the crumb mixture over the batter.
9. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean or with a few crumbs clinging to it. 

Amanda's expert tips

A banana coffee cake is fairly simple to make, even with components you don't usually find in a traditional coffee cake. This banana bread coffee cake took a lot of trial and error and testing using known baking science to get the perfect flavor and texture. These are some of my top tips to make sure you get the best results every time. 

• Measure your flour correctly. The best thing to do is to give the flour a quick fluff, and then spoon the flour into the measuring cup. Sweep off the excess with a flat edge. If you scoop up flour, especially without giving it a quick fluff, you can end up accidentally end up adding as much as an extra ¼ cup of extra flour which will leave you with a dense cake. For the best results, you should use a kitchen scale and measure out your flour and other dry ingredients in grams. 
• Ingredient temperature matters. All your ingredients should be room temperature otherwise they won't come together right and leave you with a texture that isn't appealing. You can quickly soften butter with a few different tricks, and leave your egg in a glass of warm water for a few minutes. 
• Use ripe bananas. It bears repeating, but you need very ripe bananas that has more brown spots than yellow. If you don’t have overripe bananas, you can also roast your bananas in a preheated 350F oven for about 14 minutes, turning halfway through. You can also freeze your bananas completely, then let them thaw completely. This only works if you plan this out ahead of time. Personally, roasting bananas is my favorite method because it gives so much flavor to the banana.
• Don't over mix. It is so important to make sure you just barely combine your wet and dry ingredients together. It is okay to have a few lumps in your batter. By mixing just until incorporated, you ensure your crumb cake is soft and irresistibly tender. Over mixing will leave you with a tough, chewy cake
• Be careful with your layers. You want to put half the batter into the pan, then evenly sprinkle the swirl mixture. Carefully top with large dollops of the remaining batter, then spread the batter carefully, so you don't end up mixing the swirl into the batter. Top with the streusel and press gently to make sure it adheres. 

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Related Recipe

Try this cinnamon roll coffee cake or this raspberry chocolate coffee cake. You may also love this pumpkin coffee cake. This chocolate chip banana bread and brown butter banana bread are amazing.

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