Have you ever made banana bread into a cake? If not, what are you waiting for?! Not only do you get a nice crusty top, but it gets so thick and fluffy, and sinking your teeth into it is like eating a little slice of heaven!Lately I haven’t been eating bananas as much as I normally do, so there have been a lot of brown bananas sitting on my counter, ready to be used. And what better way to use super ripe bananas than in a good old-fashioned banana bread? However, this recipe isn’t your typical banana bread – it’s more like an upgraded version!
As I was whipping up the batter for this banana bread, I remembered that I had half of a bag of frozen blueberries that I wanted to use up, so I thought this would be the perfect way to use them. After I decided to switch my recipe to a banana blueberry bread, I also remembered that I had a tub of Melanie’s Medleys blueberry cream cheese in my fridge, waiting to be used. Well what a perfect coincidence, huh? Since I was already going for the blueberry theme, I decided to just go ahead and use the blueberry cream cheese in my batter to make it extra creamy and flavorful.
When all of the ingredients were mixed together, I realized that there was a LOT of batter in the bowl. We’re talking like 5 loaves worth of banana bread! (Okay maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but there was enough batter to make at least three giant loaves!). In the back of my mind, I knew that I could easily just make several loaves and freeze some or give some away, but I was feeling lazy that day and didn’t want to go through the trouble of scooping the batter into 5 pans. So instead, I did the next best (aka easiest) thing I could think of: I poured the batter into a cake pan and baked it into a banana bread cake!
Oh. My. Goodness. By the time it was done baking, it looked and smelled absolutely heavenly, and I was so excited to dig in.
After letting it cool for a bit, I was ready to start slicing it up! I had the idea in my mind that I was going to cut it regular banana bread-sized slices, but that idea quickly disappeared. The “banana bread” was so dense and cake-like, so of course I had to cut it into cake-sized slices! It’s only fitting, right?
And boy, let me just tell you… I am so glad I decided to cut these into cake slices instead. Just look at how dense and chewy they are! Yummmmmm!
After that, I sliced up a piece, dished it out onto my plate, and started digging in.
However, after taking just one bite, I quickly ditched the fork and ended up just using my hands to eat it. And let me just tell you… it was so much better that way! Almost like eating a double piece of super fluffy banana bread. Talk about yum!
I wasn’t sure if the cream cheese in the batter would make it too dense or make the bread (cake?) collapse, but luckily it held up! And I’m so glad it did, because the cream cheese added so much texture, creaminess, and flavor to the cake. It wouldn’t be the same without it in there!
Banana Blueberry Snack Cake
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter softened
- 1 8-ounce package cream cheese softened
- 1 cup + 2 TBSP sugar
- ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 tsp. almond extract or an extra 1 tsp. vanilla
- 3 medium ripe bananas mashed (~1 heaping cup)
- 2 ½ cups flour
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- ½ tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1 ½ cups blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8×8″ baking dish with non-stick spray.
- Use an electric mixer to cream the butter, cream cheese, and sugar until soft and creamy.
- Add the applesauce, eggs, and extracts, and continue mixing until well-incorporated. Slowly add the dry ingredients, mix well, and then use a rubber spatula to fold in the blueberries.
- Pour batter into greased dish and bake 65-75 minutes, or until the top is browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
