Description
This cozy banana coffee cake is perfect for a weekend brunch! With a ribbon of cinnamon filling and a classic cinnamon streusel topping.
Ingredients
For the Filling (optional):
- 53 grams brown sugar (¼ cup)
- 2 grams ground cinnamon (1 teaspoon)
- 15 grams all purpose flour (2 Tablespoons)
- Pinch of kosher salt
For the Crumble:
- 80 grams brown sugar (⅓ packed cup)
- 60 grams all purpose flour (½ cup)
- 7 grams ground cinnamon (1 Tablespoon)
- 70 grams unsalted butter (5 Tablespoons), softened to room temperature
- Pinch of kosher salt
For the batter:
- 270 grams ripe banana (about 1 cup when mashed, or 2-3 large bananas)
- 70 grams sugar (⅓ cup)
- 1 egg
- 53g melted butter (¼ cup)
- 270 grams all purpose flour (about 2 ¼ cups when measured correctly by scooping and leveling)
- 4 grams ground cinnamon (2 teaspoons)
- 4 grams kosher salt (1 teaspoon)
- 5 grams baking soda (1 teaspoon)
- 7 grams baking powder (1 ½ teaspoons)
- 80 grams milk (⅓ cup)
- 14 grams apple cider vinegar (1 Tablespoon)
- 4 grams vanilla extract (1 teaspoon)
Instructions
Prep the components:
- Line a metal 8x8 pan with parchment paper. Heat the oven to 325° F.
- Make the filling. Whisk brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, and a pinch of salt together in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Make the crumble. Add softened butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, and a pinch of kosher salt to a small mixing bowl. Use a fork to slowly mash the dry ingredients into the butter, until you have a crumbly mixture that holds together when pressed. Keep mashing until no dry bits remain: Everything should be worked into the butter, kind of like a very thick compound butter. Set aside while you make the batter.
Make the batter:
- In a large mixing bowl, use a fork to mash bananas until they're fairly smooth. Try to work out as many lumps as possible!
- Add sugar, egg, and melted butter to the mashed bananas; whisk together until you have a smooth mixture.
- Add flour, cinnamon, kosher salt, baking soda, and baking powder to bowl. Stir until the mixture is about halfway combined.
- In a separate small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together milk, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla. Slowly stream this liquid mixture into the batter, stirring as you go, and mix until ingredients are just combined.
Assemble and bake:
- Pour half of the batter into the prepared metal pan. Use an offset spatula to spread the batter into an even layer that reaches all corners of the pan.
- Spoon filling evenly over the first layer of batter. Top with remaining batter, and once again use an offset spatula to spread it out into an even layer (Tip: It helps to place the remaining batter over the surface of the filling in multiple small scoops, rather than spreading out from one large blob in the center, so that it feels like you're connecting the dots as you spread it into an even layer).
- Top with the prepared crumble. Break the crumble up as you go if needed, so that the pieces are fairly uniform in size.
- Bake 45-50 minutes at 325° F, until the top is lightly browned and a cake tester inserted into the center of the coffee cake comes out clean. Let cool completely, then slice and serve. Optional: Top coffee cake with a dusting of powdered sugar for a beautiful presentation!
Notes
Additions and substitutions. Add chopped, toasted nuts (walnuts, pecans) to the coffee cake batter if you like. Omit the filling if you'd like to reduce the sugar in this recipe. Top with powdered sugar or a quick cinnamon glaze. Use melted coconut oil or vegetable oil in place of the melted butter.
For help with the crumble (streusel) topping, including additional step-by-step photos and expert tips, read through our full cinnamon crumble topping tutorial.
How ripe should my bananas be? We prefer using very ripe bananas here because they are a bit sweeter and softer. Choose bananas with heavily browned peels and very squishy fruit. You can use less-ripe bananas if you need to: they just won’t mix into the batter quite as well and the sweetness of the coffee cake won’t feel quite as well balanced (but it's not an enormous difference!)
A note about measuring bananas: If you mash up 2 big bananas but don't quite reach 270 grams, don't worry! We tested this recipe with a variety of banana sizes, and you can go as low as 160 grams of mashed banana if absolutely necessary: the final texture won't be quite as soft, and the banana flavor won't be as strong, but the recipe will still work! If you have extra mashed banana left over, pop it in the freezer for smoothies.
Please use a kitchen scale! Measuring flour by volume (with cups) is notoriously unreliable – for best results, use a scale to measure by weight with the gram measurements provided! We test with and recommend Escali kitchen scales. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, measure ingredients (especially flour, which is the most finicky) with the scoop and level method for best results. Note: If you have a different brand of kitchen scale, you may want to use a volume measurement for ingredients requiring 1 teaspoon or less; some kitchen scale brands we've tested struggle to accurately measure ingredients under ~5 grams, although we've found Escali scales to be very reliable even at small quantities!
Store cooled coffee cake in an airtight container on the counter for up to 4 days, or in the freezer up to 3 months.
