17 Banana Desserts to Make at Home

Here are some delicious recipes you can make with either fresh or frozen bananas.

1. 1. Banana bread: This cake-like sweet bread gets its dense crumb texture from overripe bananas, eggs, and brown sugar. Home cooks can make many variations on the classic banana bread recipe, from chocolate chip banana bread to oatmeal banana bread. Mix some dried fruit and nuts into your banana bread batter for added texture. For a dairy-free treat, make vegan banana bread.
2. 2. Banana bread pudding: This sweet dish consists of stale bread soaked in a mixture of milk, eggs, and sugar, then baked until tender and crisp around the edges. Banana makes a decadent addition to bread pudding. (Add cocoa powder and chocolate chips for chocolate banana bread pudding.) Chefs often top the dish with creamy vanilla, bourbon, or rum sauce, which perfectly complements the banana flavor.
3. 3. Banana cheesecake: Cheesecake is a dense, smooth cake made of eggs, sugar, and soft cheese such as ricotta, cream cheese, mascarpone, or cottage cheese. Add decadent banana flavor and texture to a classic New York–style cheesecake by incorporating mashed bananas and sour cream into the cream cheese filling mixture.
4. 4. Banana cobbler: This rustic fruit dessert features slices of ripe banana mixed with vanilla-flavored batter and scattered with streusel in a cobblestone-like formation. Banana cobbler is a sweeter, more cake-like version of a cobbler than biscuit-like peach cobbler or rhubarb cobbler.
5. 5. Banana cookies: For an easy banana chocolate chip three-ingredient cookie recipe, simply combine mashed ripe bananas, old-fashioned oats, and chocolate chips, then bake them in the oven. Add in dried fruit, cinnamon, or coconut shavings for some flavor complexity.
6. 6. Banana cream pie: Banana cream pie consists of a cooked custard filling, sliced bananas, and a whipped cream topping. Make banana cream pie with a standard pie crust or a cookie-based crust made with graham crackers or homemade vanilla wafer cookies.
7. 7. Bananas Foster: This classic banana dessert recipe involves sautéeing bananas in butter with cinnamon, brown sugar, banana liqueur, and rum, then flambéing the mixture to make a buttery rum sauce. Top this buttery dessert with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream. Try this simple bananas Foster recipe.
8. 8. Banana ice cream: One-ingredient banana “ice cream” is a fruit purée made from blending frozen bananas, resulting in the same creamy texture as soft-serve ice cream or an old-fashioned milkshake without the added sugar or sweeteners. Some banana ice cream recipes call for a few tablespoons of almond milk, coconut milk, or heavy cream to enhance the dessert’s creaminess. Common additions to the recipe include maple syrup or chocolate peanut butter, which you can make by blending peanut butter with dark chocolate chips or cocoa powder).
9. 9. Banana muffins: Customize your favorite muffin recipes to include sweet banana flavor. Add mashed bananas to your wet mix, then fold in chocolate chips or sprinkles before spooning the batter into muffin pans and baking in a hot oven. Sprinkle your baked muffins with powdered sugar or glaze with royal icing for extra sweetness.
10. 10. Banana pudding: Banana pudding is a classic southern dessert consisting of layers of vanilla pudding studded with fresh banana slices and vanilla wafer cookies. Historically, banana pudding recipes called for a top layer of toasted meringue. Over time, store-bought or homemade whipped cream replaced the meringue. Turn this banana pudding recipe into banana pudding ice cream by adding the ingredients to an ice cream maker. Alternatively, whip the mixture into stiff peaks and freeze it in a loaf pan.
11. 11. Banana pudding cake: This decadent layer cake takes inspiration from the classic Southern dessert banana pudding. This cake features moist layers of pound cake lined with a vanilla banana pudding frosting, sliced bananas, and vanilla wafers. Bakers coat the outside of this banana cake with a layer of rich cream cheese frosting and line it with more banana slices and vanilla wafers. Learn how to make banana pudding cake.
12. 12. Banana smoothie: A banana smoothie is a rich and creamy mixture of blended bananas and other simple ingredients—like other fresh fruits and milk. Many people enjoy banana smoothies as on-the-go meals, but they can also work as a decadent dessert. Simply mix peanut butter and chocolate sauce into your fruit slurry, then top it with whipped cream and a Maraschino cherry. To create a dairy-free, vegan dessert smoothie, replace the dairy with non-dairy products such as almond milk, coconut milk, or oat milk. Use dairy-free chocolate and top with sprinkles for an extra tasty treat.
13. 13. Banana split: This iconic sundae pairs a halved ripe banana with scoops of ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and a Maraschino cherry. Cavendish is the standard dessert banana in countries worldwide and is usually the best banana type to use for this recipe.
14. 14. Banana tarte Tatin: To make banana tarte Tatin—a variation on the French upside-down cake—bakers caramelize the fruit in sugar and brown butter mixture on the stovetop, then bake it in the oven underneath a layer of buttery puff pastry. Before serving, the baker flips the tart out of the pan to reveal a crown of glistening caramelized bananas and a crispy, crackly crust. Banana tarte Tatin is an ideal dessert to make in advance. The puff pastry soaks up the caramel sauce when you leave it in the refrigerator overnight, producing a gooey-yet-crispy texture.
15. 15. Caramelized bananas: Caramelized bananas make a decadent topping for many other desserts. To caramelize a banana, sprinkle some brown sugar over it (unpeeled), then cut it into coins or chunks. Add the pieces into a saucepan with melted butter, then cook the bananas until they develop a caramelized, crispy layer. Spoon the mixture over ice cream, French toast, or crepes for a buttery brunch or after-dinner dessert.
16. 16. Hummingbird cake: Hummingbird cake is a fruit-and-nut layer cake that marries the dense textures of carrot cake and banana bread. Hummingbird cake ingredients include ripe mashed bananas, crushed pineapple, chopped pecans, and cream cheese frosting. Garnish the cake with edible flowers as a nod to the moist cake’s namesake bird.
17. 17. Vegan banana brownies: Vegan brownies are a dairy- and egg-free version of the classic fudgy chocolate dessert. While traditional brownie recipes call for animal products like milk, butter, and eggs, vegan brownies use alternative ingredients like vegetable oil, vegan butter, or mashed bananas as emulsifiers. Adding mashed bananas to your vegan brownies has the bonus of adding a subtle banana flavor to your brownies. To swap the bananas for eggs, use a quarter cup of ripe mashed banana for every egg the recipe requires.

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