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Banana Chocolate Chip Cake

Last Updated On: February 29, 2024 | Published: November 12, 2020 by Melissa Diamond | 3 Comments
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This homemade Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Buttercream is soft, moist, and has a fantastic combination of flavors! 

If you are in search of a great Banana Cake Recipe, you are going to love this delicious chocolate chip version. Peanut butter and banana together is a classic, sweet and salty combination just works!

This cake is a fun change of pace from our other banana cake and frosting pairings. I promise, it's going to be hard for anyone to stop at just one slice.

*Of course, if you want to try the banana chocolate chip cake minus the peanut butter frosting, there are other delicious options! See our FAQ section further down in the post for details!

A Cake Elvis would Love

Peanut Butter and Banana Cake is often referred to as Elvis Cake - after his love for fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches!

He liked bacon with the combination too but as much as I LOVE all things Elvis, I'm not putting bacon in my cake. ;0) 

While we're on the subject of Elvis Cake, we have a fabulous Elvis Presley Cake in our Recipes Section, named after the King's favorite cake.

If you love yellow cake, pineapple, cream cheese, and pecans, hop over to grab the recipe (after you make today's Banana Chocolate Chip cake of course!)

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting- So moist and delicious!

How to Make Banana Chocolate Chip Cake

You can find the full, printable Banana Chocolate Chip Cake instructions further down in this post. here is a quick rundown of our steps!

  1. Preheat: First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Prepare the Pans: Grease and flour three 8x2 inch round pans.
  3. Flour Mixture: In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt for 30 seconds, set aside.
  4. Buttermilk Mixture: In another bowl, add the buttermilk, vanilla and mashed bananas.  Blend and set aside.
  5. Butter and Sugar: In the bowl of your mixer, add the slightly softened butter and mix at medium speed until smooth.  Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy. 
  6. Eggs: Add the eggs one at a time mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
  7. Add Dry and Wet Ingredients: Alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of liquid.  Do not mix above medium  speed or over mix the batter.  After mixing, fold in the chocolate chips.
  8. Time to Bake!: Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.  Check at 22 minutes, cake is done with a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.  
  9. Cool the Layers: Cool the cake layers in pans 5 to 10 minutes on a cooling rack before turning out.
Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

Decorate the banana chocolate chip cake however you like! I used an Ateco tip 32 (use any similar star or french tip) to add my reverse shell borders.

We have a demonstration of star tip piping in our cake decorating section!

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting
Moist, Delicious Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

More Banana Cakes

In addition to today's recipe, we've made many other banana cake recipes over the years. We're sharing a few of them below, but here are some of our most popular: Banana Split Cake, Hummingbird Cake, Banana Pudding Cake, and Banana Cream Cake.

If you love cupcakes, don't miss our scratch Banana Cupcakes as well as our easy Banana Pudding Cupcakes recipes!

If you love the convenience of bundt cakes and pound cakes, we have a great Easy Banana Bundt Cake from cake mix, as well as a super flavorful homemade Banana Pound Cake!

Recipe FAQs

This Banana Chocolate Chip Cake is fine to sit out at room temperature (assuming your house isn't warm enough to melt the frosting) for a day or two.

However, we often move the cake to the refrigerator after a day at room temperature (if not sooner) for freshness.

If you do refrigerate this cake, remove it about two hours before serving for best flavor and texture. This will allow the cake to warm and soften. 

Mini Chocolate Chips are more lightweight than regular size, and therefore they are less likely to sink. We also think they are cute! ;0)

We use mini chocolate chips in most of our chocolate chip recipes, including Chocolate Chip Pound Cake, Cherry Chocolate Chip Cake, Chocolate Chip Cake, and Chocolate Chip Cake from Cake Mix! This isn't even all of them ;0)

In addition to Peanut Butter Buttercream, we also love Cream Cheese Frosting with our banana cakes, a well as peanut butter cream cheese frosting! You could even do vanilla buttercream with a touch of cinnamon.

Yes, just as with the majority of our cakes (from almond cake to orange cake, marble cake and more), these cake layers freeze beautifully.

After baking, allow the layers to cool until slightly warm (or room temperature) and then wrap tightly with plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil. They will stay fresh in the freezer for up to three months.

To thaw, move the wrapped layers to the kitchen counter. Allow to sit, still wrapped, for 30-45 minutes before unwrapping and assembling the cake.

We also have so many more cake recipes from scratch as well as box cake mix recipes! Don't miss our full collection of cake recipes and cake decorating tutorials!

Enjoy the Recipe!

Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope that you love this Banana Chocolate Chip Cake as much we have!

Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!

Moist, Delicious Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

BY Melissa and Bebe
This Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting is fluffy, moist, and so delicious!
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Course: Dessert
Servings: 15 servings
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Ingredients

For the Banana Chocolate Chip Cake Layers

  • 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened (170g)
  • 2 cups white sugar (400g)
  • 3 large eggs, room temperature (Place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes if you are in a hurry.)
  • 3 cups cake flour (see Note below if you do not have cake flour) (342g)
  • 1 Tablespoon baking powder (8g)
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda (3g)
  • ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
  • 1 ½ cups buttermilk ( see Note below for buttermilk substitute) (363g)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
  • 1 ½ cups mashed banana (3 medium bananas) (277g)
  • 1 cup mini chocolate chips- adjust amount to your liking (170g)

For the Peanut Butter Frosting

  • 1 cup Creamy Peanut Butter Do Not Use Natural or Reduced Fat . We have used Jif and Peter Pan Creamy brands. (255g)
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened (226g)
  • ½ teaspoon salt (optional to cut sweetness) (3g)
  • 4 to 5 cups confectioners sugar (depending on how soft you want the frosting to be) (460g-575g)
  • ¼ cup to ½ cup 60g to 120g milk - use more if needed to reach the consistency you like
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)

Instructions

For the Banana Chocolate Chip Cake Layers

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour three 8x2 inch round pans. You could use two 9 inch pans it you do not have 8 inch pans.
  • In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt for 30 seconds, set aside.
  • In another bowl, add the buttermilk, vanilla and mashed bananas.  Blend and set aside.
  • In the bowl of your mixer, add the slightly softened butter and mix at medium speed until smooth.  Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
  • Alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of liquid.  Do not mix above medium  speed or over mix the batter.  After mixing, fold in the chocolate chips.
  • Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.  Check at 22 minutes, cake is done with a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.  
  • Cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes on a cooling rack before turning out.
  • For the Peanut Butter Frosting
  • In the bowl of your mixer add the butter and mix on medium speed until the butter is softened and smooth.  Add the peanut butter and salt, mix until blended.
  • Gradually add the powdered sugar alternately with the milk. 
  • Add vanilla and mix on medium speed 4 to 5 minutes until smooth.
  • Makes 4 ½ to 5 ½ cups depending on the amount of powdered sugar and milk used.  It is enough to fill and

Notes

  • Substitute for Buttermilk:  To a measuring cup, add 1 Tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons vinegar or lemon juice.  Add milk  to the  11/2 mark, stir.   Wait 5 minutes and it is ready to use.
  • Substitution for Cake Flour:  Using all purpose flour (plain in the UK)  to make Cake Flour:  For each cup of flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK). This recipe has 3 cups of flour so you will measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch, whisk to blend.
For the Peanut Butter Frosting
*Peanut butter brands labeled "Natural" that I have tried do not work as well with this recipe. The   consistency isn't smooth and creamy.  I have used Jif and Peter Pan Creamy with good results!
4.59 from 36 votes (36 ratings without comment)

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