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I absolutely love a nice, fluffy banana cake – it’s one of our most favourite cakes to bake. I quite like having bananas left looking a little sorry for themselves in the fruit bowl just so I can make a lovely, moist banana cake.

This easy banana loaf cake is light, moist and perfect served with custard or just eaten alongside a cup of tea. As much as we love a nice banana loaf, there really is nothing like a loaf of banana bread with dried fruit added into the mix.

What dried fruit should you use in a Fruity Banana Cake?

The dried fruit really helps to keep the fruity banana bread moist and adds a really lovely texture to the bake as well. You can add any dried fruits you like to this moist banana fruit bread – mixed dried fruit, dried apricots, cherries, cranberries.

It would all work really well in this banana fruit loaf cake and would compliment the banana flavour perfectly. We usually either use raisins and sultanas or cheap mixed fruit.

You can make this into a simple banana and sultana loaf by just using sultanas for the dried fruit. It really does make a delicious banana sultana cake recipe. Or you could make a banana and apricot cake by using just dried apricots, chopped nicely before adding to the mix.

One of my favourite alternatives is to use dried cherries to make this into a delicious banana and cherry loaf instead! A berry banana bread is another nice alternative using dried berries instead of raisins, sultanas or other candied fruit.

Whatever fruit you decide on, it’s not going to be the most healthy banana fruit loaf but it will definitely be one that everyone loves. You really can’t beat a super simple dried fruit banana cake.

How do you make this banana bread?

For this recipe we use the dried fruit already mentioned, overripe bananas and then typical cake ingredients – unsalted butter, caster sugar, eggs and self raising flour. You can also add a little vanilla extract if you like but I prefer being able to simply taste the wonderful fruit flavours in this bake.

Although we use unsalted butter, any baking spread or margarine would also work well. We’ve also used light brown sugar, golden caster sugar or even granulated sugar in the past for this recipe too and all work well as alternatives to caster sugar.

We always use self raising flour for ease but if you didn’t have any you could always use all purpose flour or plain flour and a little baking soda or baking powder instead. It’s a great recipe to vary slightly to use whatever you have at home.

Although we always have this cake plain, you could also top it with some cream cheese frosting – or even slice it in half and add a layer of buttercream icing. However you have it, this is one delicious banana cake that everyone is bound to enjoy.

This easy banana bread recipe lasts well for a few days in an airtight container and can be frozen to be enjoyed at a later date too. This is great if you have many bananas to use up and don’t want them to go to waste. It really is one of our favourite banana recipes.

If you’re looking for other ways to use up overripe bananas, why not try our banana snack bars, chocolate chip banana muffins or banana pancakes? You can see all our ripe banana recipes here but an easy banana cake is always a great choice.

What equipment do you need for this easy fruit banana cake recipe?

You can make this recipe simply with things you already have in your kitchen but here are the things we use in case there’s something you don’t already have:

As you can see, it’s all things you probably have already. We use loaf tin liners to guarantee that bakes come out of the tin easily and they’re great when baking as gifts too.

So here’s our family banana fruit cake recipe it’s basically banana bread with fruit and creates a fantastic fruit loaf.

Ingredients

100 g unsalted butter
125 g caster sugar
2 eggs beaten
80 g sultanas
80 g raisins
3 ripe bananas mashed
200 g self raising flour

Instructions

Preheat oven 170C/325F/Gas 3 and grease a loaf tin or line with baking parchment/baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs, beating continuously before adding the mashed bananas, raisins and sultanas.
Add the flour and mix well before pouring into the loaf pan.
Cook for 60 minutes and until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

If you’d like to print or pin the Fruity Banana Cake Recipe you can do so at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!

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