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A slice of banana layer cake with a bite taken.

High Altitude Banana Layer Cake with Brown Butter Frosting

Heather Smoke
A high altitude recipe for a soft and fluffy banana layer cake, made with banana infused milk, and frosted with a rich brown butter frosting.

All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.

5 from 5 votes
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Chill Time 12 hours
Total Time 13 hours 5 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings16

Equipment

  • Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
  • Medium Saucepan
  • 8-inch cake pans (x3)

Ingredients
 

Banana Milk

  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1 vanilla bean, split open and seeds scraped
  • 3 very ripe bananas (with speckled brown/black spots on peel)

Banana Cake

  • 3 ¼ cups cake flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
  • 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
  • 1 ½ cups banana milk, room temperature
  • 1 tsp lemon juice or white distilled vinegar
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
  • ½ cup vegetable oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 large egg whites (save the extra yolks for another use)

Brown Butter Frosting

  • 2 cups (1 lb) unsalted butter
  • 4 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 tbsp meringue powder
  • ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4-1/3 cup banana milk, only as needed

Instructions
 

Banana Milk

  • Peel the bananas, discard the peel, and slice the bananas into 1/2 inch pieces. Combine the milk, vanilla bean + scraped vanilla bean seeds, and the sliced bananas in a saucepan. Over medium heat, bring the milk to a simmer. Remove from the heat.
  • Pour the milk with the bananas into a lidded container, and refrigerate for 12 hours (overnight) to infuse the milk with banana flavor. After 12 hours, use a slotted spoon to remove the bananas and the vanilla bean pod from the milk.
    TIP: You can either throw out the bananas, or mash them and use them in banana bread.
  • Let the banana milk come to room temperature for about an hour, before mixing up your cake batter. You'll be using 1 1/2 cups of the banana milk in the cake batter, and the rest in the frosting.

Banana Cake

  • Preheat the oven to 350 F, and lightly spray the bottoms of three 8-inch cake pans with non-stick baking spray.
  • In a large bowl, sift together the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, then whisk to make sure everything is evenly distributed.
  • In another large bowl, whisk together the banana milk (1 1/2 cups), lemon juice, melted butter, oil, eggs and egg whites until smooth.
  • Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and whisk until combined and smooth, about 10-15 seconds.  Divide the batter between the cake pans.  Tap a few times against the counter to pop any large air bubbles.
  • Bake the cakes for about 25-28 minutes, or until a cake tester or a toothpick comes out clean, and the tops spring back when lightly touched.
  • Set the pans on a wire rack, cover them loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting.  When ready to frost and assemble the cake, remove the cakes from the pans.

Brown Butter Frosting

  • In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Continue to cook the butter, swirling the pan occasionally. It will hiss and spatter a bit, as the water evaporates, and the milk solids settle onto the bottom of the pan. When it's nearly ready, a layer of foam will form on top of the butter, and if you nudge the foam aside, you'll see nutty, golden brown milk solids on the bottom of the pan (if they turn dark brown or black, you've gone too far and burned the butter). The browning process might take about 5-10 minutes.
  • Remove the pan from the heat and use a spatula to scrape all the browned milk solids off the bottom of the pan. Pour the browned butter and all the browned bits into a bowl.
  • Let cool until the butter returns to a spreadable solid consistency. To speed this up, put the bowl in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours and stir the butter every 20 minutes or so until it's firmed up but still spreadable.
  • In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cooled brown butter for 1 minute until smooth.
  • In a separate bowl, combine the powdered sugar, meringue powder and salt. With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar mixture by spoonfuls, then the vanilla. Increase the speed to medium (#4/6 on a Kitchen Aid mixer), and beat for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy, scraping the bowl several times. The process of browning the butter removes the water from the butter, so this buttercream will be too dry unless you add back in some liquid. So while you're beating the buttercream, add in the remaining banana milk a tablespoon at a time, until you're happy with the consistency for spreading onto your cake. Turn the speed down to "stir" and mix for 1 minute to pop large air bubbles.
  • Remove the cooled cakes from the pan. Fill and frost the cake layers with the buttercream, then cover the cake with a thin crumb coat of frosting. Chill for 30 minutes to set the crumb coat, then frost all over with a final coat of frosting.
Keyword Banana, Banana Cake, Brown Butter, High Altitude, Layer Cake
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