Caramelized Banana Upside Down Cake

Easy caramelized banana upside down cake with sour cream or yogurt made from scratch or with cake mix is a moist dessert that everyone will love. Enjoy this easy recipe with your family and friends year round.

This homemade banana upside down cake is fabulous. Made with slightly browned fruit it is a great overripe banana recipe you can make so you don’t waste food. With this simple batter you can make other varieties too like with peaches or even pears. Get to baking! (affiliate links present)

Upside Down Banana Cake Recipe

We have made a few fun renditions of the old fashioned pineapple version. Our upside down cherry pie was a fun one that is super easy using pie filling. This one is from scratch with bananas and an easy mixture of caramel to go along with it. If you don’t have a silicone or springform pan those are the best ones to use for sure.

Even when we make our Instant Pot pineapple upside down cake, a smaller version of the latter is used. Reason it works so well is that it will break apart a whole lot less when you flip it over this way. Just loosen the outside rim and take it off. Put a plate on the now bottom and lift off the top to reveal the caramelized fruit.

I have shared TONS of ways to use up your nanners. I just hate to waste what I know will make something amazing to eat right? Way back when I first started I fell in love with banana pudding cake, still love it. Realized that it added a moisture that you couldn’t get any other way, so I kept going. For this one you’ll need;

Ingredients

• Room temperature butter unsalted
• 5 tbsp brown sugar
• Corn syrup
• 4 bananas sliced in half or whole, not too brown, but some
• 1.5 c all purpose flour
• Baking powder
• Vegetable oil
• White sugar
• 2 eggs
• Greek yogurt plain or vanilla
• Vanilla

Remember that the darker the fruit the sweeter it is, but also the mushier it will be. In this case that won’t really matter because it is going to be heated and soften a lot in the process anyway. You could use “fresh” too though as you can see here. It is very versatile that way. I like kinda’ in the middle of the two if I had the choice.

Banana Upside Down Cupcakes

Now you could make these into smaller mini cakes using a muffin pan. You’d need to slice your fruit and divide the caramel into the wholes. Use silicone baking cups or just spray with non stick spray so they slide out. Pour in the batter on top until each is 3/4 of the way full and bake for closer to 20 minutes.

How to make banana upside down cake

• Preheat oven to 390 F.
• Pour corn syrup into a saucepan, melted butter and brown sugar with the salt.
• Warm over medium heat. Wait for the caramel to start foaming. Stir with a spatula and be careful not to burn it.
• After 3-4 minutes from the beginning of the boil, remove the saucepan from heat. Stir the caramel for another minute, then pour into your 7-8″ silicone or springform round baking cake pan.
• Put the peeled ripe bananas on top of the caramel.
• In a large bowl, mix your all purpose flour and baking powder together. In another bowl, pour vegetable oil, vanilla and add sugar. Mix together.
• Add eggs in with sugar and beat the ingredients for 2 minutes with a mixer.
• Add yogurt and stir again. Gradually add dry ingredients to mix slowly and make a thick dough.
• Pour batter on top of bananas. Put the baking dish in the oven and bake for 45 minutes to 50ish. If the cake starts to brown too much on top, cover the baking dish with foil.
• After the cake is baked so center has firmed but still very moist, remove and let it cool in the baking dish on a cooling rack for 15-20 minutes.
• Then turn it over onto a plate and remove, or unlock springform sides, remove, flip over to a plate and remove bottom piece.

If you used a silicone version allow to cool a while longer if you want it to stay whole. Use a knife to loosen all the way around the outer circle. Place a plate on top and push your thumbs around the edges to loosen it and plop it out of the pan. Enjoy as is, with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or Dulce de Leche Pressure Cooker on the top.

Banana upside down cake with cake mix

You really can use whatever fruit you wanted on the bottom, which turns out to be on top when done. If we are in a real hurry I will throw together our pineapple upside down cake with yellow cake mix which takes a fraction of the time. Of course from scratch is always better but sometimes you’re in a pinch.

How to save leftovers

You may have leftovers, let’s talk about how to save that too shall we? Back to……I hate wasting food and all. 😉 Ok so you only want to slice what you are going to consumer then and there first off. Keeping the rest whole will maintain the moisture inside. Then grab some plastic wrap and put it on top touching it all the way around.

Air is the enemy so you want to trap the least amount possible here. Then wrap around the bottom of the plate and put into the fridge. It will stay for 3 days or so but I recommend to enjoy again within the first 24 hours for best results. It is solidify with the cold so it is kinda’ like a really moist banana bread bundt cake next day.

How do you know when banana cake is done?

Unlike a “regular cake” this is going to be very moist. Typically when a toothpick inserted into the center you want it to come out clean, not with this one. It will have wet crumbs attached with some ooey gooey caramel looking sauce on it too. That is perfect! If you waited until it was totally clean you can baked it entirely too long.

These are fun made into cupcakes too like I spoke about above. It doesn’t take nearly as long to bake for sure, but best if eaten fresh for sure. What I typically do when I make these is to use a tbsp. and scoop each one out one at a time. Put on a plate and serve up that way with a dollop of Cool Whip on top. NO slicing required which is nice this way.

If you use silicone muffin cups you can lift those right out. Flip it over on to your plate and pull it back so the cake upside down is now right side up with the bananas on the top. For the holidays this method works well so there is not a lot of effort on my part once they are done.