The Best MOIST Banana Cake with Oil
This Banana Cake recipe is made with oil (no butter needed!) and a great way to use over ripe bananas! With these easy step-by-step instructions, you’ll bake an incredibly moist and indulgently sweet banana cake from scratch. Finished with a luscious layer of classic or whipped cream cheese frosting, ( a reader favorite!) this cake is one you’ll come back to over and over!
This is literally the best banana sheet cake. Wanna know why?
Because people stop me in the street to tell me how good it is. One of my friends moms came over to me a while ago while I was out with my kids and said she had to tell me how amazing this cake was, and that her grandchildren love that every time she comes over they know that she is gonna make this cake.
Cue the tears, its fine. 😭😭😭😭
So this is your sign to stop what you’re doing, grab those over-ripe bananas that I KNOW you have sitting on your counter and make this super easy banana cake. Your grandchildren will thank you.
The cake is super moist because its made with oil, which also created a super a light and fluffy texture with delightfully sweet and creamy banana flavor.
As a rule of thumb, the riper the bananas are ( that means they are dark, spotty, and super mushy) the sweeter your cake will be! These are the kinds of bananas I am always baking with.
As a trained pastry chef, I’m used to making banana cakes with butter, but for this banana cake, I opted for all-oil, and it made a DELICIOUS difference. Now with over 60, 5 star reviews for this recipe, I’m so glad I did!
I use the same technique for this banana bread made with oil. And because everything is better with frosting, you can’t skip this cream cheese frosting to slather all over the cake!
I’m obsessed with baking with bananas. I always seem to have some past their prime on my counter so I like to make these 5 star rated banana chocolate chip muffins,or fresh banana cupcakes!
Baking with oil instead of butter
I use oil here instead of butter for a few reasons. Using oil keeps a cake moist for longer (like days longer) than a cake with butter. It also creates a more tender crumb. Sometimes butter can weigh a cake down and I definitely didn’t want that for this recipe.
Cake size
I make this cake in a 9×13″ pan but you can divide the batter into two round 9″ cake pans and bake like that to make a layer cake. Make sure to check on the cakes at the 30 minutes mark. If they are still jiggly in the middle give it another 5-10 minutes.
You can also make this recipe into cupcakes. Line a muffin tin with cake liners and bake for 18 minutes.
Recipe Tips
- Only mix until combined! Do not over mix the batter as it can create a tough batter.
- Measure your dry ingredients correctly. The best way to do this is with a kitchen scale. If you don’t have a scale then spoon the flour into your measuring cup and level it off.
The Best MOIST Banana Cake with Oil
Ingredients
- 1 cup (225 g) banana , ripe, mashed, About 2 medium-large or 3 small bananas
- 3 (3) large eggs
- 1 cup (218 g) vegetable oil
- 2 tsp (2 tsp) vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups (300 g) granulated sugar
- 2 cups (240 g) all purpose flour
- 1 tsp (1 tsp) baking powder
- 1/2 tsp (0.5 tsp) baking soda
- 1/2 tsp (0.5 tsp) kosher salt
- 1 batch (1 batch) Cream Cheese Frosting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and generously grease a 9×13” pan with baking spray. You can make this recipe by hand or by using a hand or stand mixer on medium speed.
- In a large bowl mash the 1 cup bananas. It’s ok if there are little lumps. Add the 3 eggs, 1 cup vegetable oil, and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and stir to combine. Add the 1 1/2 cups of sugar to combine.
- In another bowl or over a large piece of parchment paper combine the 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt. Add the mixture to the bowl and mix lightly until combined.
- Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. The cake is done when the edges start to pull away from the sides and the top feels firm when touched.
- Allow cake to cool at least 10 minutes in the pan and then invert into a wired rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Frost with my homemade whipped cream cheese frosting and enjoy!
Hi. I came across your recipe yesterday(6/27/26) and I happened to have some ripe bananas that needed to be used… I used the base of your recipe as a guide and then I made it my own with a few different ingredients using: Grapeseed oil, 4 large bananas(which made 1 cup and about 5-6 TBSP’s added to that cup for the bananas) cinnamon, mexican vanilla, dried honey granules and a light sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top before baking.
The crumb on this bread is tender, and because I had an overflow of bananas that flavor shines through Very Well(how me & my family likes it) and it Moist as well!
Thanks for sharing your recipe! Will be making again.
Side note: too bad we can’t post photos of the end results– I would love to show my work
Hey Annie!! Thanks so much for making this, Im so glad it all worked out as a base! I actually started a bake club on facebook this year for exactly this reason- I love to see people’s bakes! You can join it here if you’d like!
My family loves banana bread but now loves this usually gone within a day!!
YAY! So glad to hear it Beth!!
Easy to follow .
Its still in the oven😁.
Yay, hope you love it! Come back and let me know how it turns out once it’s out of the oven! I’m so glad the instructions were so easy to follow. That’s my goal!
Hi there
Well the cake is out of the oven.
For some reason it took longer than an hour to fully bake…but the taste was wonderful…i sprinkled a little icing sugar in top.
Thank you.
Haha I literally just responded to your other comment before I saw this one! So glad it turned out and the taste was wonderful. Icing sugar on top is such a nice touch! Sorry it took longer than expected to bake, ovens can sometimes are off by a few degrees so it might just be that mine was hotter. Thanks so much for letting me know how it went!
Replaced the flour with Gluten Free cup for cup flour and it came out so incredibly delicious and moist! Thank you for proving the grams as well! Amazing recipe. New family favorite.
Yay Emma! So glad it worked beautifully with the cup for cup flour, that’s so helpful for anyone else looking to make this gluten free. And I’m always going to include the grams, a scale really does make all the difference! Thank you so much for the 5 star rating and for letting me know it’s a new family favorite, I really appreciate it!
Hi! Can I use sunflower or olive oil? And replace all purpose flour with whole meal flour? And brown sugar instead of white sugar?
Hi! The oil swap should work and be an easy one, sunflower oil usually is a great swap and I’ve used it many times in my other bakes! I’d skip olive oil since the flavor is pretty strong for a sweet cake. Brown sugar will also work as a 1:1 swap, it’ll just make the cake a little darker with a slight caramel flavor, which is actually really nice with banana. Wholemeal flour is the one I’d be careful with. I haven’t tested it, but it can soak up more liquid and will make the cake denser and heavier. If you want to try it I’d do half wholemeal and half all purpose so you keep some of that light texture. Let me know how it goes!
So easy to make. The cake is moist, soft and delicious. I made double recipe, cut down 1/2 cup sugar and topped with walnuts and dark chocolate chips. Yummy! Thank you!
Yay! So glad you loved it! Walnuts and dark chocolate chips on top sounds so good, and it’s great to know it still worked beautifully with less sugar. Thank you so much for coming back to share how you made it and for the 5 star rating, I really appreciate it!
Can you use olive oil?
Hi Heather, no I wouldnt use olive oil, it has too much of a distinct taste. Any neutral oil like avocado, or vegetable works.
I was wondering if you could swap the oil for unsweetened applesauce?
Hi Lisa! I havent tried it with this recipe but apple sauce is a great substitute to try. If you do, please let me know how this comes out!