Bananas are an underrated fruit. You can eat it raw, fry it, boil it, turn it into a pie, and more. From main courses to snacks, I grew up with many banana dishes. I tell you, they were all delish!
For this post, I’ll focus on banana desserts. When ripe, these fruits are absolutely sweet and make the perfect treats. There’s a wide range of desserts you can make with bananas, from cakes to puddings.
Thus, engorge yourself in these easy and delicious recipes bursting with banana flavor. Each one will wrap your meal on a sweet note.
1. Banana Bread Pudding
Bread pudding — a mixture of leftover bread, milk, cream, eggs, and spices — is quite common. But banana bread pudding? This novel dessert will surely intrigue you and your loved ones.
This recipe needs the usual ingredients, sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar, ripe bananas, and chopped nuts. For the spices, you’ll have cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. There’s also vanilla extract in the dish.
You can serve your bread pudding warm or cold, but it must be with a rich caramel sauce. Make the sauce using brown sugar, butter, vanilla, and milk. Pour over the pudding, slice it, and then eat.
2. Banana Cream Pie
Banana cream pie is a classic, if not iconic, banana dessert. With its many elements, this dish packs a creamy and delicious flavor. The components come together for a satisfying texture and taste profile.
This banana pie has several layers, starting with a homemade butter crust. A silky vanilla custard sits on the crust, followed by a layer of sliced bananas. Finally, top the whole thing with whipped cream.
You can garnish the cream pie with even more banana slices. The resulting dessert is like heaven in a pie crust; each bite is rich, silky, sweet, and smooth.
3. Banana Pudding
I’ve included a banana bread pudding, but this one is entirely different. Firstly, there’s no bread. Instead, you get a layered dessert with a thick, creamy center that’s indulgent.
Essential ingredients are cream cheese, milk, sweetened condensed milk, bananas, cool whip, banana cream pudding mix, and Chessmen cookies. This is the order of assembly: cookies, banana slices, pudding, then cookies.
The banana pudding layer is a mixture of cream cheese, milk, and pudding mix. Besides the Chessmen cookies, you can use vanilla wafers or butter cookies. You can also swap Cool whip for stable whipped cream.
4. Bananas Foster
Blend the delicious flavor of banana with the spicy kick of rum to make bananas foster, also known as bananas flambé. This New Orleans treat promises a magical dessert with only five ingredients.
Yes, you only need five ingredients to make this recipe. These are cinnamon, butter, banana, rum, and brown sugar. If you want, serve the final dish with vanilla ice cream. You can turn bananas foster into French toast or pudding.
A non-alcoholic bananas foster is possible. Leave out the rum, but if you do, you can’t flambé the dish, and the characteristic bittersweet flavors may also change.
5. Banana Bars
Banana bars are already an excellent dessert. But you can take them to the next level by slathering a whole layer of cream cheese frosting on top. The textures and flavors of the two layers come together in every bite.
You’ll need butter, sugar, eggs, mashed bananas, vanilla, flour, baking soda, and salt for the banana bars. For the cream cheese frosting, these are the ingredients: cream cheese, butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla.
If you don’t like a cream cheese topping, replace it with creamy caramel or chocolate peanut butter frosting. You can also use chocolate ganache.
6. Banana Ice Cream
Who doesn’t like an ice cream scoop or two after a meal? Bananas aren’t a traditional flavor of this creamy, cold dessert, but you can try it with this recipe. It’s especially perfect for a summer day.
The ingredients are very ripe bananas, egg yolks, heavy cream, whole milk, sugar, kosher salt, vanilla, dark rum or vodka, and chopped chocolate. It’s essential to use ripe bananas; the riper they are, the better.
For variation, add chocolate chips, peanut butter, or both. You can also add Reese’s mini cups and chopped nuts for more flavors and textures.
7. Banana Tartes Tatin
Tarte Tatin is a pastry with a caramelized fruit filling. In this recipe, you’ll caramelize bananas in butter and sugar. It’s epic, especially with a scoop of ice cream on top.
There are only four ingredients: unsalted butter, light brown sugar, ripe bananas, and puff pastry. Prepare baking dishes by smearing them with butter and sprinkling them with sugar. Arrange banana slices on the plate, then cover with puff pastry.
Unlike a traditional tart, you’ll invert this dish after baking, so the puff pastry is on the bottom. The caramelized fruit shines on top, gooey and rich from the caramel.
8. Banana Blueberry Muffins
Did you know bananas are berries? This recipe combines two well-loved berry fruits in a muffin cup. The flavors are incredibly refreshing, and the overall muffin texture is moist and soft.
You need a lot for these muffins. You must have flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, sour cream, bananas, blueberries, and walnuts. You can use fresh or frozen blueberries, but the former is best.
The flavors of these muffins are exciting. They’re sweet but balanced, so it’s not overwhelming. Such sweetness isn’t straightforward because of the nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, and other ingredients.
9. Banana Blondies
Blondies is a fond term for light-colored brownies. We’re adding another flavor dimension to this delicious dessert by bringing in bananas! Topped with brown sugar frosting, each bite melts in your mouth.
You’ll need brown butter, egg, light brown sugar, vanilla, salt, flour, and mashed banana. The frosting recipe calls for butter, light brown sugar, milk, and powdered sugar. There’s no dark chocolate in blondies, and such absence gives it its unique color.
Bake the blonde banana brownies according to the directions. Once done, prep your brown sugar frosting and slather on the cooled blondies. Slice, serve, and enjoy!
10. Thai Banana Pancakes
Teleport your tastebuds to Thailand with this simple, sweet, and filling dessert. This is a street cuisine favorite, and you’ll quickly see why so.
The flavors and textures of these Thai banana pancakes are unlike typical pancakes. They are more similar to roti or stuffed crepe, and the dish is also egg-based. The concept may not be familiar to the Western side, but you must give this a chance.
You only need flour, salt, caster sugar, vegetable oil, an egg, water, ripe bananas, and melted chocolate. You’ll stuff the bananas inside the pancake, similar to crepes, then drizzle them with chocolate.
11. Banana Cake with Brown Butter Frosting
I have a special love for banana cake. It’s not just because of their flavors but more of the incredibly light, fluffy, and moist texture that it has. Everything comes through together, and it’s simply perfect with a brown butter frosting on top.
You’ll need the following to make the cake: butter, eggs, sour cream, bananas, vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt, and walnuts. You must have butter, sugar, vanilla, and milk for the brown butter frosting.
Use the ripest bananas you can find for the best cake. If you’re not fond of walnuts, you can use pecans instead.
12. Gemma’s Banana Bread Pudding
The bread pudding recipe above is novel in flavor but not in style. It still uses day-old white bread. We’ll use leftover banana bread for this recipe and turn it into a fantastic and irresistible pudding.
From top to bottom, there’s a great transition from crunchy topping to a rich custard underneath. When topped with ice cream, this pudding becomes the creamier comfort dish you’ll be looking for.
Except for the banana bread, the ingredients are similar to any bread pudding. There’s also dark brown sugar to match the banana flavor profile and hints of vanilla for complexity.
13. Banana Nutella Crepes
We have Asian pancakes above, courtesy of Thailand street cuisine. This time, we’re bringing in European touches with these delicious French crepes. The abundance of bananas and Nutella makes this phenomenal.
To make the crepes, you’ll need flour, milk, butter, vanilla, eggs, salt, and water. The resulting product is like a thinner and flatter pancake. The batter has no banana flavor, as you’ll stuff it in the crepes.
Once the crepes are ready, spread Nutella on each pancake’s center and top with bananas. Roll, then drizzle with more chocolate. Top with sliced bananas and granola for crunch.
14. Banana Split
We can’t have a banana dessert post without a banana split. A banana is literally split lengthwise, hence, the name. Scoops of ice cream fill the center of the dish.
Usually, you get three flavors of ice cream. There’s also an array of toppings, like cherries, chopped nuts, whipped cream, chocolate drizzle, and more. The banana split is so popular there are unique dishes called banana boats made just for it.
In this recipe, each ice cream has a different flavor and corresponding topping, like chocolate syrup or crushed pineapples. It’s a loaded experience but not overwhelming.
15. Hummingbird Cake
Before anything, no, there’s no sweet, innocent bird stuffed into this Jamaican cake. Although endearingly known as hummingbird cake, this dessert features pineapple, banana, and spicy flavors.
This cake is unbelievably moist and delicious, especially with cream cheese frosting. It takes a humble banana cake and elevates it to a new level. Although an unusual combo, bananas and pineapples complement each other well.
Also, this recipe is a way to transform your old, frozen bananas. I know you don’t want to eat them as they are, but you can turn them into fabulous desserts, like this hummingbird cake.
15 Easy Banana Dessert Recipes
Get yourself some bananas to make these crazy delicious and easy dessert recipes.
Ingredients
Banana Bread Pudding
Banana Cream Pie
Banana Pudding
Bananas Foster
Banana Bars
Banana Ice Cream
Banana Tartes Tatin
Banana Blueberry Muffins
Banana Blondies
Thai Banana Pancakes
Banana Cake with Brown Butter Frosting
Gemma’s Banana Bread Pudding
Banana Nutella Crepes
Banana Split
Hummingbird Cake
Directions
- Select your favorite recipe.
- Organize all the required ingredients.
- Prep a banana dessert in 30 minutes or less!